Sup! 👋

It was about time to write about another VC-related topic.

Don’t worry, I will have some unique X-posts and profound takes in this one, but it will mainly be a numbers piece.

Something like 80% of all VC cheques in the last two years went into AI businesses or startups with heavy AI exposure.

And we’re at a point where it’s complete madness!

There are so many things to elaborate and explain here, so let’s not waste any time and get stuck in right away!

PS: If you enjoy this newsletter and believe your friends or family would too, a recommendation would be greatly appreciated!

In Q1 2026, global venture capital hit $300 billion.

Eighty percent went to AI. Sixty-five percent went to four companies!

In the same quarter, hyperscalers committed another $650 billion to building the data centers that will house all those promises.

Out of 12 gigawatts of US data center capacity planned for 2026, only 5 are actually being built.

Capital outran the grid.

The rest is delayed, canceled, or waiting on transformers that take up to five years to ship.

The bottleneck on AI in 2026 isn’t models or chips. It’s electrical equipment, most of it sourced from China.

The bubble pops on power, not on valuations.

So bro, where are the transformers?

Well, the simple answer is: they went to four companies, and there isn’t much we can do right now.

The more complex answer is the following.

OpenAI raised $122 billion. Anthropic raised $30 billion. xAI raised $20 billion. Waymo raised $16 billion.

Together, those four deals ate 65% of all global venture funding for the quarter.

Source: Wall Street Journal

That math should bother you, regardless of what you think about AI.

A year ago, AI captured roughly half of global venture funding. Now it’s eighty percent.

Q1 2026 alone exceeded all of 2025 combined for AI investment. The remaining 20% that went to non-AI startups.

LPs allocating to “venture” in 2026 aren’t buying diversification. They’re buying a concentrated bet on four operating companies, dressed up in a venture wrapper.

Talk to any solo GP raising funds right now. The first question from LPs isn’t about portfolio construction or thesis. It’s about AI exposure.

As if AI exposure were a primitive that exists separately from the four companies that have already absorbed it all.

The honest version of that conversation: every fund without allocations to OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, or Waymo is implicitly betting against the median LP’s preferred trade.

That’s a brave position to underwrite, and also the only one with any chance of generating differentiated returns.

The result is a venture market with two tiers. The top tier writes massive checks into a handful of late-stage AI deals at valuations that may or may not survive a deployment timeline they don’t control.

The bottom tier hunts for AI-adjacent picks, deep tech, and vertical SaaS bets that LPs increasingly view as consolation prizes.

There’s no middle anymore, and the grid says no.

Source: Bloomberg

Sightline Climate, the market intelligence firm, tracks roughly 12 GW of US data center capacity scheduled to come online this year.

Bloomberg reported in April that close to half of those projects are delayed or canceled.

Can you imagine that?!

Out of about 140 planned facilities, only a third are actively under construction.

The reason isn’t capital, rather it’s transformers.

Lead times for high-power transformers ran 24 to 30 months before 2020.

Today, they can stretch to five years. AI deployment cycles run under 18 months. The math doesn’t work.

Specifics make the abstract real. Micron’s reported $24 billion Singapore fab is going to need hundreds of transformers, more than the annual output of any single manufacturer in the world.

Hyperscaler projects across Texas, Virginia, and Arizona are running into operator disputes, environmental opposition, and supply chain delays that wouldn’t have stopped a project in 2019.

Source: YouTube

The 7-gigawatt gap isn’t one big problem; there are hundreds of smaller problems, all happening at once.

Developers are scrambling for alternatives. Canada, Mexico, and South Korea have become major transformer suppliers to the US AI build-out.

Imports of Chinese high-power transformers, despite tariffs and national security concerns, jumped from fewer than 1,500 units in 2022 to more than 8,000 through October 2025.

China supplies more than 60% of US battery imports and roughly 20% of certain transformer and switchgear categories.

The country the US has spent a decade trying to reshore manufacturing away from is now the one keeping the AI build-out alive.

Most AI bubbles take focus on valuations. Wrong stress point!

The valuations might survive a sentiment correction. They won’t survive a deployment timeline that physically cannot be delivered.

Source: Apollo Academy

If hyperscalers spend $650 billion in 2026 to build capacity that arrives 18 months late, the inference compute promised in every enterprise pitch deck doesn’t exist on schedule.

Customers don’t churn because they don’t have alternatives. They also don’t expand the way the projections require.

The unmet demand becomes a 2027 markdown story.

Worth flagging here: this is also why OpenAI’s DeployCo arrangement, the $10 billion structure where it’s promising private equity firms a 17.5% guaranteed return for distribution rights inside their portfolios, looks shakier the more you stare at it.

Mandating AI deployment across 1,200 portfolio companies sounds great until you realize the inference compute to serve those rollouts may not be online when the contracts say it should be.

I will tackle DeployCo in an upcoming piece, so watch out for that.

But still, the grid is the binding constraint. Capital can’t fix it on the timeline. LPs are underwriting.

However, this analysis, if you want to call it that, is very one-sided and mainly focused on the U.S.

Source: Gulf News

I’m writing this from Dubai, in an undercooled room, but with a strong focus on how other regions around the world are doing this differently.

The dollar venture pool is locked into four labs that all need US power and US grid permits to deliver what they’ve sold.

Meanwhile, sovereign capital in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore is sitting on actual energy infrastructure, faster permitting, and a willingness to fund grid build-outs directly.

The UAE doesn’t have a five-year transformer queue; at least I couldn’t find any official data or resources on it.

G42 is already operating a gigawatt-scale infrastructure in Abu Dhabi, with backing from Microsoft and the local sovereign wealth machinery.

Saudi Arabia’s PIF launched HUMAIN as the kingdom’s national AI champion, with capital deployment speeds that don’t run through any Western allocation committee.

Source: YouTube

Singapore is quietly rebuilding itself as a regional data center hub with regulatory clarity that Washington has spent a decade failing to deliver.

These projects and initiatives aren’t moonshot bets. They’re operating projects with existing power, existing permits, and access to capital that doesn’t ask whether AI is in a bubble.

Nobody is suggesting every AI workload should move to the Middle East.

The question is why $242 billion of Q1 capital ignored the geographies where the deployment surface is actually being built.

The answer is partly inertia, partly LP comfort with US tech, and partly currency.

None of those reasons holds forever.

The next leg of the AI cycle belongs to the regions that figure out how to put compute where the power already is.

OK, enough numbers, companies, or even geography talk.

As I showed, the world of VC investing into AI, and the lack of transformers, is a story with many backroom deals.

But there was more going on this week as well, or some things I find interesting. Some of it is funny, some is a long read, and other things are just flat out crazy.

Here are the Tabs Worth Opening:

• This Danish newspaper still has more paper readers than online subscribers: Weekendavisen newspaper is one of these rare stars in the media industry. The paper is run by Martin Krasnik, and in this Monocle interview, he showed that they are still selling more physical papers than online subscriptions.

• A guy recovers his Bitcoin wallet with Claude: This was making the rounds on X. A Bitcoiner forgot the password to one of his BTC wallets from 2013. Thanks to Claude and some reverse engineering, he recovered its password. Make no mistakes here, Claude didn’t ‘hack’ the wallet. It merely found out what password he most likely had.

• You can now take OpenAI’s Codex everywhere with you: Many people, especially the OpenClaw community, are using OpenAI’s Codex as their Claude Code alternative. And this week, the company announced that you can now connect your Codex instances and account to your mobile ChatGPT app.

• Google is gearing up for its developer conference: Alex Heath from Sources reported that the company will soon release a new version of Gemini. They also released Googlebook, the comeback of their famous Pixelbook, now with dedicated AI features.

• The Senate Banking Committee voted in favor of the Clarity Act: This news might only be interesting to crypto nerds. Still, the Senate Banking Committee just greenlit the approval for the Clarity Act. This regulation would ensure the full integration of crypto assets into the banking system. Let’s see if the vote passes in the Senate. They need at least 60 in favor.

And that’s a wrap for the eleventh full issue of Internet Native Capital.

It was a longer one than expected, with many numbers, scenarios, and potential future outcomes.

I hope you liked it, and I answered the question of why the transformers are missing and why VCs are only investing in AI at the moment.

I’ll now head out for a well-deserved walk around the block and a nice iced coffee.

See ya!

Sup! 👋

AI is everywhere in content right now, and creators are piling in.

You’ve seen the output.

The bad stuff: posts that look like someone pasted a chatbot conversation straight onto the page.

The middle stuff: technically fine, with all the personality stripped out.

And the really good stuff, where people spent a lot of time enhancing their writing and content through AI.

The tools have made everyone faster. The harder question is whether speed is doing creators any favors.

Push that further, and you land on something bigger: Is AI killing the creator economy?

I think it’s doing the opposite.

Today, I’m breaking down what’s happening between creators and AI, and why I think it’s making the creator economy stronger with a twist.

PS: If you enjoy this newsletter and believe your friends or family would too, a recommendation would be greatly appreciated!

You may have heard the term “creator economy” before, whether on social media, in the newspaper, or here on Substack, but do you actually know what it means?

I asked Claude (I know, ironic) to explain to me what the word “creator economy” means, and here is its answer:

Source: Claude

In layman’s terms, the creator economy is an ecosystem of independent operators who speak directly to their audience and get paid for it through proven monetization models.

And here’s the part that matters: most of these are tiny outfits. One person, two people, maybe ten at the absolute high end.

No newsroom. No editing desk. No layers of approval. Just the creator, their convictions, and whatever message they’re trying to get across.

So what do you do? You obviously start using tools to enhance your workflows, and there it is. That’s where AI comes in handy.

Source: Adobe

According to this study by Adobe, which I also double-checked with this article by TechCrunch, almost 85% of creators claim to use AI.

While the overall testing pool of just 16,000 creators is not synonymous with the entire world, there is a clear favor of creators, aka the creator economy, using AI.

The trend, though, is very clear. Creators are relying on AI to do the majority of their work.

And this is not just my view.

The inspiration for this piece came from an interview on New Economies with Ollie Forsyth.

Source: New Economies

He sat down with Tony Stubblebine, CEO of Medium, and the two of them got into it: what AI use actually means for creators, and whether any of those creators will ever see a cent from it.

Tony argues that the way readers find your content has completely changed.

Long gone are the days when you write something up, and people magically find you on Google.

Thanks to AI and the enhancements for creators, mainly to output content much faster, everyone is now publishing.

But in his words, this comes at a high price.

While creators use AI, most of these LLMs are using the content they produce to teach their models.

As creators pull their best work behind paywalls and private groups, the public internet fills with AI slop, degrading the very data these companies need.

He laid out a five-part playbook for creators to get around that:

• Go private, either with paywalls or newsletters.

• Lead with genuine expertise over volume.

• Write evergreen content that works inside AI agents.

• Use AI tools to unlock your own dormant expertise.

• And let AI companies feel the pain of their own short-termism.

Which I find an intriguing angle.

Most creators, especially if you’re starting, are trying to outwork everyone.

Either by publishing more content, trying to exaggerate a trend, or by simply going the other direction.

You do all of that for free, with a “discovery-first” mentality in mind.

Tony argues that you need to go private much faster. Not to earn a quick buck, but to actually future-proof yourself against the dangers of big AI companies abusing your content.

Source: X

Which, honestly, is something I haven’t even considered when starting to write this article.

AI is hurting the creator economy. Not because creators aren’t getting paid, but because the content itself is collapsing.

You have likely seen the low quality of online content.

Everyone posting on LinkedIn sounds like a ChatGPT bot. X replies become robotic, and every newsletter looks the same.

To borrow a line from Les Misérables: even the darkest night will end, and the sun will rise.

We have to live through the slop phase before the good stuff separates from the noise.

AI has turned everyone into a production studio. That doesn’t change the fundamentals.

Content marketing still rewards those with something worth saying. Storytelling does most of that work. Use AI to sharpen the story. Not to skip writing it.

Storytelling can be a huge factor for this as well. Rather than using AI as a shortcut, prompt your copy or video script to deliver value.

This can be a simple prompt: “How would you rewrite this to get point A across?”

Or: “What would the ideal reader take away from this copy?”

Either AI gives you something usable and your content is sharper for it, or it doesn’t, and you’re back to the rewriting session editors have been running for centuries.

We’re in the early days of AI in the creator economy. People are testing. Creators especially. The ones who land on the workflows that sharpen their work are the ones who’ll pull ahead.

To sum it up: the creator economy isn’t dead because of AI. It’s running on steroids. And we’re figuring out which steroids work.

The creators who use AI to sharpen their work will be the ones standing out. The ones using it to fill space will not.

If you haven’t yet, block out a weekend. Teach your AI tool your writing style, your ideas, and what “better” actually looks like to you.

Once you see what it can do with that input, you won’t want to stop producing. The slop era ends when enough creators figure this out.

And the creator economy moves from $200 billion to $1 trillion. Faster than the analysts are forecasting.

I always get into a deep work writing block when I think about the creator economy. Hopefully, it wasn’t too much rambling.

But, as always, many other things were happening on the Internet, and I had to mention them as well!

Here are the Tabs Worth Opening:

• Claude has a new product with a LoFi YouTube livestream: The team behind Claude can’t stop! They even vibe-coded a LoFi livestream for you to listen to while working. Check it out by clicking the title above.

• GameStop’s CEO wants to buy eBay and they immediately blocked his account: This is the funniest story this week. GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen wants to buy eBay. There is even a weird CNBC interview with him in which he says the deal will be half cash, half stock. Nothing more. Then eBay responded by blocking his account.

• James Murdoch wants to buy the New Yorker: You must be familiar with the Murdoch name. If not, watch the latest Netflix documentary about them. You’ll see that Succession was nothing compared to this family. Now, the outsider of the family, James, wants to buy the New Yorker. Fun times ahead…

• Kalshi doubles its evaluation in five months: The prediction market platform Kalshi is at the brink of a new evaluation. The regulated rival to Polymarket is rumored to be worth $22 billion. That’s twice as much as five months before. Seems like people really like prediction casinos.

• Johnny Haris’ recent interview with Semafor: I have been a Johnny Harris fan for a while now, and this week he was on the Semafor media podcast. In the 55-minute interview, he gave many insights into his content strategy and philosophy.

And that’s a wrap for the tenth full issue of Internet Native Capital.

The creator economy is one of the great compounding stories of the next decade. AI just made it compound faster.

The tools that used to belong to studios are in your laptop. The distribution that used to belong to networks is in your hands.

If you’ve been on the fence about starting something of your own, this is the moment.

See ya!

Sup! 👋

It’s been a few weeks since I last posted on here.

Don’t worry, I didn’t get the Substack blues or was demotivated. I actually moved!

From Vienna to Dubai, to be exact. And before you ask, yes, I’m fine. The situation has calmed, and yes, the weather is that hot.

Anyway, with the personal stuff out of the way, let’s focus on today’s topic.

There is now a growing trend online, with media brands popping up left, right, and center.

What may seem like a phase or just people vibing is actually a much more interesting phenomenon…

PS: If you enjoy this newsletter and believe your friends or family would too, a recommendation would be greatly appreciated!

Everybody with anything to sell online is a publisher first, business second.

This is not a statement from one of the online gurus trying to sell you a course, but rather a fact.

If you don’t believe me, look at who’s been writing the cheques lately.

Source: X

A 19-month-old livestream was acquired by the world’s most valuable AI lab. That’s the bit you should sit with for a moment.

In April, OpenAI bought TBPN, the daily three-hour tech show hosted by John Coogan and Jordi Hays.

The terms weren’t disclosed, but TBPN reportedly pulled in around $5M in 2025 ad revenue and is on track to clear $30M this year.

Not bad for two former founders shouting into a camera from what they call the “TBPN ultradome.”

The show now reports to Chris Lehane inside OpenAI’s strategy org. He’s the guy who runs the crypto super PAC Fairshake.

Editorial independence has been promised, naturally. Whether TBPN ever takes a real swing at, say, Anthropic going forward, that’s the question worth watching. Anyway.

Source: YouTube

The Europeans, by the way, are already on it. ETN, short for European Technology Network, was launched in late 2025 by Ronan Chambers and Luke Knight, right after TechCrunch Europe and The Next Web both folded.

It raised €171K at a €1.1M+ valuation, and now streams twice a week on X and YouTube.

Their pitch was almost too simple: TBPN works in the U.S., Europe needs the same vibe, go.

Source: X

Meanwhile, MTS, or Monitoring The Situation, just got backed by a16z.

It’s a 24/7 livestream on X covering tech, business, politics, and culture in real time.

A direct successor, in spirit, to what cable news was supposed to be before it became eight people yelling about Trump tweets.

That’s just the livestreaming segment of new media ventures. You will also find other veterans who jumped off the ship.

Taylor Lorenz left the Washington Post in October 2024 and launched User Mag on Substack.

Her reasoning was blunt: legacy institutions can’t cover the internet, and the people running them don’t understand the world she covers.

She is far from alone.

• Casey Newton runs Platformer.

• Matt Taibbi runs Racket News.

• Ben Smith co-founded Semafor.

• Bari Weiss launched The Free Press.

The boldface bylines have figured out the math.

Why split your earnings with a dying masthead, when you can own the audience, the email list, and the upside yourself?

Substack is the new Condé Nast, except the writers actually keep the cheque.

The VCs have noticed too. In November 2025, a16z published an essay called “What is New Media?” and announced a dedicated media team, plus an 8-week fellowship to train creators who can drop into portfolio companies for launches and timeline takeovers.

Marc Andreessen’s basic argument: the press is unfair and ignorant, so we’ll just hire our own.

You can disagree with that worldview. You can find it slightly ominous.

As a former journalist, I find it childish that he doesn’t have the guts to speak up or clarify what is reported wrongly.

Source: YouTube

But you can’t really argue with a16z’s results.

The firm grew its AUM from $2.7B in 2011 to over $90B today, while largely refusing to take calls from journalists.

A16z is also listed twice on the TBPN New Media Map. They’re not subtle about it.

Here’s where most people still get this wrong, and why I keep banging on about it.

Social media used to be a distribution channel.

You wrote the article on the website, then you dropped the link on X or LinkedIn so people would click through.

That game is over now.

X, YouTube, Substack, LinkedIn, TikTok, those are not distribution anymore.

They are the product.

The actual front door of your business now lives on someone else’s feed, and the homepage of your website is mostly a courtesy.

Which means if you’re building anything online, a Bitcoin brokerage, a SaaS tool, a fund, a one-person newsletter, you should be designing for the feed first, the website second.

That is the media-brand-first mindset. Not “we have a content strategy.” Not “we’ll boost it on socials.”

The show is the company, and the company is the show.

Optimize 100% for the feed you’re betting on, or get out of the way.

Anyone still treating their X account as a glorified RSS feed is already losing.

And this is the key point I’m trying to make here. For over 10 years, I have been saying that social media and the wider web have the skillset to replace legacy media models.

What was missing was viewer demand. Now that this is here, more and more industries (including those that previously had no touch point with the media) are actually following up and stepping into the ballpark.

And it’s not just big companies. Independent media, independent journalists, and independent content creators are following that pursuit as well.

Whether that will lead to a new industry or to the same stuff, just differently packaged, we shall see.

OK, I admit it, I went a bit on a rant here and wrote more than I thought.

Sorry about that…

But there was even more happening this week, and as always, I will list them below.

Here are the Tabs Worth Opening:

• Apple didn’t see the AI push for the Mac Mini coming: To say that Apple thumbed its nose at the AI race is an understatement. But it seems like they’re winning or taking something out of it all at least, by selling the hardware. Shockingly better than anticipated…

• Anthropic’s latest evaluation of $900B+ is on the table: The makers of Claude seem to continue their push forward. From new products such as Claude Design, to a new LLM release with Opus 4.7, and now a new evaluation with a potential round of $50 billion.

• There is an alternative to GPS, and it’s worth $5B: ZaiNar is a US startup that turns existing wireless networks into a hyper-precise location and timing layer for the physical world. With this, it’s a direct competitor to GPS, and it seems like it’s worth a dime. $5 billion to be exact.

• Boston Dynamics is losing management people: One of the most hyped robotics startups of the last decade seems to be struggling and losing C-suite people. They’re following the CEO, who retired in February, followed by the CTO and CSO. Will they be replaced soon? Only time will tell.

• Founders Fund doubles down on Anduril: One of the most innovative military-industrial companies is expanding rapidly and seeking new capital. They didn’t have to look much further than Peter Thiel and his Founders Fund, who committed another big chunk of money for war drones.

And that’s a wrap for the ninth full issue of Internet Native Capital.

Usually, I write a bit more in-depth about a particular story or news update.

This week was more of a list of things happening, and the new objective for brands to become media hubs.

I hope you liked it. Starting next week, we will be back on the regular schedule.

See ya!

Sup! 👋

I’m not gonna lie, this week’s issue was hard to write.

Many of my friends live in the Middle East, and for the past 48 hours, I was more glued to my phone screens or in group chats than actually focusing on the regular topics.

If you have any friends, family members, or online friends in that region, I hope they’re safe and that the world will be back to normal in a few weeks. At least I hope…

However, I find the process of writing these articles therapeutic and thought the entire Warner Bros. vs. Paramount/ Netflix saga too good to ignore.

So here’s a watered-down version of what happened. No worries, there are still some interesting takes and a few funny social media posts in there!

In the coming months, we will definitely have more clarity on the deal, and I will do a full breakdown then.

But for now, here is the latest development.

PS: If you enjoy this newsletter and believe your friends or family would too, a recommendation would be greatly appreciated!

Turns out, I was celebrating too early.

Back in December, I wrote about how Netflix won the Warner Bros. saga and how legacy media lost the streaming wars.

Well, the Ellisons had other plans.

Paramount Skydance outbid Netflix at $31 per share, valuing the whole thing at roughly $111 billion.

Netflix, which had locked in a deal for $27.75 per share back in December, decided not to match.

Can’t blame them. One can only offer something that, many times, becomes redundant.

Source: X

Here’s where it gets spicy.

Paramount’s financing package is roughly $45 to $46 billion in equity and more than $57 billion in debt.

Read that again. Fifty-seven billion in borrowed money.

Bank of America, Citigroup, and Apollo are on the hook for the debt financing, and Larry Ellison personally guaranteed $45.7 billion from his trust, backed by Oracle stock.

One of the world’s richest men is betting his personal fortune on a media conglomerate carrying more debt than most countries’ GDP.

Internet Native Capital

A newsletter about the latest news on the Internet, including VC and media deals, AI gossip around the water cooler, and whatever new crypto launch is trying to challenge Bitcoin. Mix in a bit of humor, and you get Internet Native Capital.

By Joël Kai Lenz

The combined entity would carry a debt ratio of nearly 7 times its annual earnings, which is the kind of number that makes credit agencies sweat.

Paramount pledged to cut that down to 4.4 times earnings, meaning massive cost cuts from day one.

And there’s the quiet part I don’t read in any of the flashy economics papers.

Paramount isn’t putting up much of its own cash.

The whole deal is leveraged to the sky, with Apollo and Gulf state money backing it.

A free market purist might call this capital allocation. A skeptic would call it financial engineering with a prayer.

A shareholder vote is scheduled for 20 March, regulatory approval could take over a year, and state attorneys general are already lining up to challenge it.

Source: X

Netflix stock jumped almost 9% on the news. Investors were relieved they walked away.

That tells you everything.

Whether Paramount actually closes this deal, loaded with enough debt to sink a battleship, is a question for 2027. Maybe 2028.

On that note, good luck to the Ellisons and Paramount Skydance shareholders.

While I kept my main part for this week’s issue short, there were still some exciting things happening next to the Warner Bros. takeover.

The following pieces or links are Tabs Worth Opening.

• What an AI cyberattack could look like: It’s been the week of AI doomsday posts, and I found this one by Axios entertaining and informative. But it doesn’t stop at one article; there are a few good takes in there.

• Microsoft wants to store data on glass for 10,000 years: I’ve been enjoying Semafor recently, and this article caught my eye. In it, they mention how Microsoft has discovered a way to store data on borosilicate glass, a widely available and durable material, reliably for 10,000 years.

• A great review about Perplexity Computer: I stumbled across this Substack in a group chat, and I must say, it’s one of the best reviews out there about Perplexity’s latest competitor for Claude Cowork. On that note, also follow Karo on Substack. She’s a great writer!

• Notion launched custom AI agents: While I personally enjoy Obsidian over Notion, I think props are for their latest product launch. As a content guy, I especially enjoyed their launch video.

• Your anonymous social media accounts are not safe from AI: ETH Zurich has released an LLM with built-in deanonymization, and it’s bad news for anyone who has an anonymous account. Time to pack it up or become better at hiding your writing tells.

And that’s a wrap for the eighth full issue of Internet Native Capital.

The whole Warner Bros. saga has everything you need for an HBO banger of a series.

Actually, scratch that! They should use this as the baseline for another season of Succession.

Picture this scene, late at night in a board room, everyone baffled by the latest numbers, then one of the Co-CEO’s of Netflix gets up, calls the Elisons, and says:

“Congratulations on saying the biggest number you fucking morons.”

That would be such a typical Logan Roy move.

Anyway, I’m again praising my love for a fictional moment in one of the best TV shows out there.

Back to everyday life.

See ya!

Sup! 👋

Today’s issue might be a dry one. Sorry in advance :)

For once, I don’t have some AI or crypto news to share, but rather a story I have a long history with.

We’re going to talk about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

This was one of the first stories I covered over a decade ago, when I was still struggling in Microsoft Word as a reporter.

And it seems like I can’t let go of it… Life has come full circle, and we have a fun update to this.

PS: If you enjoy this newsletter and believe your friends or family would too, a recommendation would be greatly appreciated!

OK, before we kick things off with the updates to the story, here’s a quick rundown on what Section 230 all entails.

Section 230 is part of the Communications Decency Act, passed in 1996, and it basically says one thing: platforms are not responsible for what their users post. That’s it. That’s the whole deal.

Essentially, it’s the reason the internet works the way it does today, and it protects platforms from responsibilities.

A newspaper publishes a defamatory article, and they get sued. Facebook hosts a defamatory post from some random guy in the middle of nowhere; they don’t.

The law treats platforms as distributors, not publishers. A bookstore doesn’t get sued for selling a book with lies in it. Section 230 gives that same protection to websites.

There’s a second part most people forget about. Section 230 also lets platforms moderate content however they want, without losing their legal shield.

They can remove posts, ban users, curate feeds - all without being treated as a “publisher” who’s now liable for everything else on the site.

So yes, the same law that protects platforms from lawsuits also permits them to decide what stays up and what gets taken down.

Internet Native Capital

A newsletter about the latest news on the Internet, including VC and media deals, AI gossip around the water cooler, and whatever new crypto launch is trying to challenge Bitcoin. Mix in a bit of humor, and you get Internet Native Capital.

By Joël Kai Lenz

The real tension comes down to a simple question: should a handful of Silicon Valley companies get legal immunity AND the power to decide what speech is acceptable?

Congress has been “about to reform” Section 230 for years now. Both sides hate it, just for different reasons.

• The left thinks platforms don’t moderate enough.

• The right thinks they moderate too much.

And in the meantime, Big Tech companies keep collecting the biggest legal shield in American history, while deciding the rules of the game for everyone else.

OK, with that out of the way, what’s the latest update?

See, in his first term as President, Old Donnie wanted to hold platforms more accountable.

He even signed an Executive Order in May 2020, stating that any platform that censored his posts would be after him.

In his mind, this should be forbidden, and there should be more accountability for the state to get rid of the protection of Section 230 for platforms such as X, back then, Twitter.

He even involved the General Attorney and wanted the law changed, as, in his mind, it was 25 years old and outdated.

But here’s the kicker: The executive order didn’t actually repeal or amend Section 230. It couldn’t. Only Congress can change the law.

And the courts weren’t buying it. Federal courts had been remarkably uniform in interpreting Section 230 broadly, exactly the way Congress intended.

Fast forward to today!

The old debate about Section 230 just got a whole new dimension: AI.

There is a growing push on both sides of the aisle to repeal and get rid of Section 230, because it never factored in the evolution of generative AI or Machine Learning.

The core problem is simple. Section 230 was built to protect platforms from liability for what users say, not for what the platforms themselves generate.

But AI is not a human, at least not yet, and the main argument from lawmakers is to either factor this into the Communications Decency Act or get rid of it completely.

You read about numerous cases where AI chatbots were involved in teenagers’ committing suicide.

So far, AI companies have been able to avoid major lawsuits through legislative technicalities.

Regarding Section 230, all of the companies are quiet as well. Maybe because they know they wouldn’t win, or because they don’t want to awaken a sleeping bear.

Lawmakers on the Hill are actively trying to push the agenda of ‘AI is not part of Section 230,’ and I expect some bangers about future developments.

For now, all you need to know is that Section 230 is still around, but AI might not profit as much from it as online platforms have in the past.

Next to the whole Section 230 madness, we’ve also had some fun stories on the Interwebs.

The following pieces or links are Tabs Worth Opening.

• New AI doom scenario just dropped: This is a great read by a fellow Substacker in Alap Shah, where a future macro memo about how AI could crash the economy and markets by 2028.

• The pitch deck got replaced by the pitch.md file: This article argues that you need to be laser focused on your writing and focus less on your ‘pretty slides’ in any pitch deck you write. Luckily, you got AI to help you out with that.

• Spotify is pushing AI music, aka slop: Spotify started as a pirate company, but the recent developments with AI are pushing them further away from that vision. Now they want to include AI music in playlists and begin the rollout with the UK market first.

• Dario Amodei is being summoned to the Pentagon: Claude and the Pentagon is a love story in its own kind. They will now meet for an ultimatum at the Pentagon, where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will speak with them to ease the restriction on Anthropic’s LLM.

• Manus released a vibe coding guide: Manus is quickly becoming a great AI tool for my day-to-day tasks and deep research. I also played around with their vibe-coding capabilities, and this blog was a great resource.

And that’s a wrap for the seventh full issue of Internet Native Capital.

Section 230 made a comeback, and I’m not 100% certain that I will cover this again in the future.

By then, it will be called Section_230.md, with a new framework about how AI content is being treated from a legislative standpoint.

However, this is in the distant future and until then, I alread look forward to covering the craziest statements by Congress or Senate members in public hearings. That makes for so many great memes…

See ya!

Internet Native Capital

A newsletter about the latest news on the Internet, including VC and media deals, AI gossip around the water cooler, and whatever new crypto launch is trying to challenge Bitcoin. Mix in a bit of humor, and you get Internet Native Capital.

By Joël Kai Lenz

Sup! 👋

Maybe you didn’t know, but by day I work as the Content Coordinator at a little start-up called Relai.

Therefore, I have extensive exposure to Bitcoin and the broader crypto community. From reaching out to partners to speaking with other companies to engaging with the press.

And there is something I have noticed the last couple of months: long-time HODLers (people who hold Bitcoin and crypto for a long time) are leaving the space and pivoting to AI.

Or they’re engaging more with AI because it’s currently where the hype is, or because they’re genuinely interested.

I’m also guilty of this. Mainly because I want to test and see what this new kind of tech is all about, but also because I see the productivity increase.

Either way, I’m intrigued to dig a bit deeper today and find out what’s going on.

PS: If you enjoy this newsletter and believe your friends or family would too, a recommendation would be greatly appreciated!

The inspiration for this article was the following interview by Kris Marszalek, the CEO of Crypto.com:

Source: YouTube

In it, he explains his idea behind ai.com (speaking of snagging two of the hottest domains) and why he decided to launch this product.

On that note, he said he paid over $70 million for the domain and already had offers of over $500 million. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt for that claim.

And if I say launch, this is quite a hefty take. The service currently is a landing page and a promise.

Sign up, pay them $20 a month, and in the future, you will be able to do some cool stuff with it. Apparently, it will be an identifier and focus on agentic workflows.

They launched in the most growth-hack way: by booking a Super Bowl ad slot, hyping it, and leading people to the website.

Ironically, the whole thing appears to have been done in a short time, so the website couldn’t handle the traffic.

Nevertheless, it worked as they have over 300,000 people who signed up.

Internet Native Capital

A newsletter about the latest news on the Internet including VC and media deals, AI gossip around the water cooler and what ever new crypto launch is trying to challenge TradFi. Mix in a bit of humor and you get Internet Native Capital.

By Joël Kai Lenz

Kris is still CEO of Crypto.com, one of the largest crypto exchanges, but his focus now seems to be on AI.

He argues this in this interview and in others: there is just more excitement in AI than in crypto.

Which is something I have noticed as well. It’s no secret that Bitcoin and other cryptos have entered a bear market. We see drawdowns of at least 50%.

During this time, things slow down, it gets a bit quieter, and believers are doubling down and building better products for the next wave of adoption.

But looking at the paper, the only real use case of crypto in the last two years has been the ETFs and prediction markets.

Besides that, all the promises we heard - with ungovernable money, building decentralized infrastructure, and expanding into a new ecosystem - have not become a reality.

To be fair, the guardrails on which this industry is built take longer than you anticipate, and I would argue the only real use case of cryptographic money is Bitcoin. The rest is all noise. But that’s a discussion for another time.

Rather, it seems Bitcoin and crypto have been captured by the big banks and financial institutions they claimed to fight.

Source: Google Trends

I’m also fully aware that not everyone thinks like this, but the majority of interest in crypto seems to be driven by institutions, not retail, as it was earlier.

Ironically, AI emerged alongside all the developments and got in the way.

But as you can see in the chart above, it also had it’s tiping point. Interest is slowly vanishing as well.

However, if you view both ecosystems as assets, why invest in the one that gives you a 50% return when there is another that increases productivity, is easier to use, and gives you a 500% return?

Speaking from personal experience, I’m more interested in AI now because I've seen a real-world increase in my productivity. What used to take me 10 hours is now taking me 2.5.

At the same time, I see AI adoption amongst everyday people accelerating. Normies can understand what to do with Gemini or ChatGPT better than they can understand why you need to remember 12 words in your head.

Not that I think it’s hard to remember the 12 words, but apparently, we’re not there yet and need to work harder on more user-friendly solutions.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still loving what I do in my day-to-day, but the days when I would further research a particular Bitcoin topic are gone.

Not because I don’t believe in Bitcoin, but rather because I want to enhance my knowledge in a new and emerging field and use that to further improve my “orange-pilling” skills, aka, educating people about Bitcoin.

Leave a comment

And, most importantly, I have tried to educate people about Bitcoin so often that I’m kind of tired and think to myself, they will come in due time.

In the long run, after experiencing this for a couple of bear markets, I think the interest in Bitcoin, and eventually crypto, will return.

And if this is the case, I hope that all of us who have been in it long enough are over-optimized and have AI systems in place to help people out.

The entire sector has come a long way, but I believe the adoption hurdle is still massive, and for now, getting people hooked on AI seems like the easier play.

Having said that, I believe both worlds will merge soon enough, when we get to a point where AI needs to be monetized or when agents need to find a way to pay other agents online.

You can do this with a credit card, but the dangers and privacy nightmares are too much of a hassle. And if you ask any chatbot today, chances are they will tell you Bitcoin is the best currency to solve this problem.

I will wait and see how long it takes us to get to that point. Especially at the rate this technology is growing, this could be sooner, rather than later…

While the crypto hype has slowed down and people are pivoting, there has also been a lot going on elsewhere on the Internet.

The following pieces or links are Tabs Worth Opening.

• Spotify developers have not written a line of code since December: I think we will see more headlines and articles like this one. Vibecoding and agentic development have contributed massively to this. What I’m interested in is the quality of that code and whether there are many bugs in the Spotify app.

• Clone AI, a news aggregator with 2005 vibes: I recently stumbled across this website, and I must say, I love the look and feel, as well as the content on there. A great place if you’re interested in tech and culture.

• VC unicorns are losing their edge: For the past 10 years, we've heard about unicorn success stories and how rich many VCs have gotten from this explosive growth. Taking a closer look at the data now shows that this trend may be fading.

• Karen Hao’s book, Empire of AI: I recently picked up Karen’s book and really enjoyed the behind-the-scenes look at how OpenAI and ChatGPT grew into the giant they are today. Spoiler ahead, there are a lot of “WTF?!” moments in there.

• Love TBPN, you may also like ETN: The TBPN podcast has become one of the most interesting media brands in the tech scene. It now sparked a new show called ETN. Both co-hosts are from the UK, and I like the European vibe of the show.

And that’s a wrap for the sixth full issue of Internet Native Capital.

It felt more like a personal issue, but it was great to spill my guts and write down why I believe the crypto industry is pivoting.

If you liked it, go ahead and leave me a comment below; if you didn’t, let me know as well.

My goal is to engage more with my readers here and see where I can take Internet Native Capital.

That’s it for now, I’m heading out to learn more about how local LLMs run best on my setup.

See ya!

Internet Native Capital

A newsletter about the latest news on the Internet including VC and media deals, AI gossip around the water cooler and what ever new crypto launch is trying to challenge TradFi. Mix in a bit of humor and you get Internet Native Capital.

By Joël Kai Lenz

Sup! 👋

I turned 30 yesterday, and I can already feel certain things starting to annoy me. Maybe one of the perks of getting older…

One of these things is crypto and prediction markets. And speaking of crypto, it’s currently not a great time to be in the ecosystem.

The entire sector has taken a nosedive, with Bitcoin dropping over 45% from its all-time high, to Ethereum and other popular coins going down the drain even more.

It seems like the hype that kept the space alive (ICOs, NFTs, ETFs) has vanished, and there isn’t much else left that brings the masses to it.

Well, there are two things: Stablecoins and prediction markets, aka gambling.

Polymarket and Kalshi seem to be the big winners out of this development so far, and they’re partnering up with some of the biggest brands out there to let people gamble their savings away.

Today, I want to break down what’s going on and whether there is actually another use case for crypto or if this is just pure stupidity.

PS: If you enjoy this newsletter and believe your friends or family would too, a recommendation would be greatly appreciated!

Polymarket or Kalshi may have popped up on your radar in 2024.

It was one of the platform’s screenshots that circulated widely before the U.S. election, showing Trump at good odds of being declared the winner in November.

A few months later, the bets on the election were proven correct, against all odds from election experts.

I also find the founders’ backgrounds behind these platforms fascinating.

It was all about making a mark, becoming a big name like Mark Zuckerberg, and not using crypto to improve the experience.

Watch this video below to understand Polymarket’s rise:

Source: YouTube

Ever since the 2024 elections, VCs, crypto enthusiasts, and degens online have been shouting about prediction markets.

Actually, they invented a new term for gambling, because let’s face it, this is degenerate gambling.

This way of using crypto (you mainly need a wallet with coins in it to place bets) has emerged as a new “fascinating” use case.

Fans of prediction markets will argue that you have a financial incentive for each person’s voice, and it’s as close to democracy as we can imagine.

And you know who these marketing claims (take it from someone who works in marketing for a living, and someone who can differentiate noise from signal) speak most to?

Bingo, legacy media companies!

With popular podcasts or shows now featuring tickers below for the biggest bets on each platform, it seems like society is already used to it.

Source: Wall Street Journal

As you can see, Dow Jones is already partnering with Polymarket, along with CNN and CNBC, with Kalshi.

All of these media outlets and large companies have realized that prediction markets are super sticky and keep people hooked on the latest news.

From betting if Jesus is making a return this year (no joke, this is a bet on Polymarket), to Trump being impeached or Jeffrey Epstein still being alive.

Every single one of these bets is attracting millions, if not billions, in capital, all with the hope of people making an extra buck.

Naturally, this is the latest hype cycle, and it will eventually flatten.

However, it’s currently the only use case, aside from stablecoins, where a large group of people engage with crypto.

But it’s not in the way crypto purists envisioned the world over ten years ago.

Rather than challenging or improving the existing financial system, this crypto use case simply leverages existing infrastructure and improves it by 30%.

Transaction costs are lower, and it’s easier to bet on something with one click, rather than entering your credit card and then executing the command.

In the end, at least I think, it’s a sad reality of what was once a promising vision, and even worse, it gets people hooked on one of the most addictive drugs out there.

Source: Polymarket

Who knows, maybe I’m too pessimistic and don’t see the whole picture.

The only thing I like about prediction markets is getting a feeling across the board and seeing what specific communities are thinking.

But for now, this feels like more of a distraction, rather than an actual improvement to what the world could be.

At the end of the day, you can also vote for free on key events. There doesn’t have to be a gambling factor there. Because the moment people can go overboard, things usually become nasty.

Or maybe the underlying idea of democratic voting could be implemented in a different way. Rather than monetary votes, it could be a utility token.

Either way, here is the latest and greatest in crypto. Let’s hope I’m wrong and nobody gets into too much debt.

In addition to prediction markets, there has been a lot of interesting news and events this past week.

The following pieces or links are Tabs Worth Opening.

• Sam Altman is furious about Claude’s ads: In case you missed it, Claude has released some ads, and it’s the modern version of a diss track. Sam Altman seems annoyed by it and has shared some of his thoughts in this interview.

• AI wiped out over $400 billion this week: It was earnings season this week, and it seemed like the mega CAPEX by Big Tech was too much for the market, especially for software companies to take.

• Bitcoin fell over 45% from its all-time high: As someone who works at a Bitcoin brokerage, I had a stressful week with a lot of selling and hysteria. Here is an excellent breakdown about what happened and where Bitcoin is going next.

• Are AI lawyers coming in the form of agents?: This Techcrunch piece breaks down how all AI agents are currently improving drastically, and that basic law tasks, aka paralegal work, can already be automated.

• AXIOS’ CEO argues that we should always think like a startup: Jim VandeHei made an interesting video about his mindset and why every company should be in startup mode. Maybe this is the new founder mode we heard about last year…

And that’s a wrap for the fifth full issue of Internet Native Capital.

It may have been a rant, mainly about how stupid I find the whole prediction market aspect, but I still hope you enjoyed it.

I definitely liked looking into these things and falling down new rabbit holes that I may pick up in future articles.

Until then, I wish you a great start to February and hope the cold winter days are soon a thing of the past.

See ya!

Sup! 👋

Vibe coding, OpenClaw, Claude Code.

These are all buzzwords circulating on X and across the VC world.

Not only are these tools widely used, but they are also a compelling investment case for VCs.

VCs usually want the fast track to 10x their money. Automation is a useful tool for this, and AI has been all the rage.

Today’s rant is about all that’s been happening and why I wouldn’t be surprised that we soon see an AI, vibe-coded VC fund.

PS: If you enjoy this newsletter and believe your friends or family would too, a recommendation would be greatly appreciated!

Claude Code was released in February 2025 as a research preview, then Anthropic made it generally available in May alongside Claude 4, and things got complex.

By October, it was on the web. By January 2026, they launched Cowork for non-coders.

The tool went absolutely viral over the winter holidays when people had time to mess around with it.

Users with no programming background began using it to book theater tickets and file taxes. That’s when the floodgates opened.

Enter Vibe Coding.

Andrej Karpathy coined “vibe coding” in February 2025.

His definition was simple: fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponential growth, and forget that the code even exists.

He described it as seeing stuff, saying stuff, running stuff, and copy-pasting stuff until it mostly works.

Karpathy explicitly said this was for “throwaway weekend projects.”

VCs heard “throwaway” and thought “billion-dollar opportunity.”

Source: X

The term hit Merriam-Webster within a month. Y Combinator reported 25% of its Winter 2025 batch had codebases that were 95% AI-generated.

Then came Clawdbot, later Moltbot, now known as OpenClaw, after Anthropic sent a trademark request.

Peter Steinberger, the Austrian developer behind PSPDFKit, released this open-source AI assistant in late 2025.

It hit 60,000 GitHub stars within 72 hours, one of the fastest-growing projects in history.

The pitch was irresistible: a self-hosted AI agent that actually does things rather than just talking.

Full system access. Browser automation. Persistent memory. 50+ integrations across WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, and more.

Andrej Karpathy praised it. MacStories called it the future of personal AI assistants.

VCs lost their minds!

They see the solution in it for everything, but don’t anticipate that this could turn everything into the Dead Internet Theory meme…

Source: X

But VCs weren’t the only ones excited about ClawdBot; security researchers also had a field day.

Using Shodan, they found complete credentials exposed, from API keys, OAuth secrets, full conversation histories, and the ability to send messages as users.

One researcher sent a malicious email with prompt injection to a vulnerable ClawdBot instance.

The AI read it, believed it was legitimate, and forwarded the user’s last five emails to an attacker’s address.

Took five minutes.

The Hacker News consensus was brutal! “It’s terrifying. No directory sandboxing.”

You’re giving an agentic bot complete control over your browser and system, and somehow VCs see this as the solution to literal world peace.

The codebase itself was described by reviewers as “very, very vibe coded.”

Ironic, isn’t it?

The current AI setup, using tools like Claude Code with proper oversight, remains the smarter play.

• Review what you generate.

• Understand what you deploy.

• Don’t hand your entire digital life to a WhatsApp bot running Claude Opus with root access.

• If you want to use an agentic bot, do so on an isolated system.

At the end of the day, quality still matters.

In VC, you’re only as good as your last exit. In AI, you’re only as good as the code you actually understand.

Maybe someone should tell the vibe coders before they vibe their way into a data breach.

In addition to the ClawdBot mania, there was also some exciting news or worthwhile content to check out.

The following pieces or links are Tabs Worth Opening.

• ‌Robot vs. human, who’s the better driver?: I really liked this piece by Joann Muller in AXIOS. It shows all the issues with robotaxis and whether we really need them.

• AI bots already built their own social media platform: This one is super weird and super scary. Various ClawdBot agents built their own AI social media platform and posted gossip about their owners there. Definitely worth a read!

• Jason Calacanis gets called out by Palmer Luckey (again): The Epstein files are in round three, and there was a lot of weird stuff in there. One of the names mentioned was Jason Calacanis. And Palmer Luckey used the chance to send out this banger of an X-post!

• The Smart Brevity book by AXIO co-founder Jim VandeHei: I’ve been fascinated by the Smart Brevity framework and recently ordered this book by Jim VandeHei. Good read so far, and I’ve already started using some of the formats here.

• A year in the life at MKBHD: This is a brilliant video of one of the most popular YouTube creators out there. It shows how much work goes into the creator business.

And that’s a wrap for the fourth full issue of Internet Native Capital.

The rise of AI will bring more funny memes, unique take-downs, and nasty security hacks.

Yet, this is not the end of AI or the beginning of something new. It’s simply part of emerging new tech.

OK, time to cut it, I don’t want to hold you back if you’re going to give agentic bots a try.

Have fun playing with it in a secure way.

See ya!

Sup! 👋

I can’t believe I have to write this, but we’re at the point in the AI hype cycle where OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and other providers are launching health products.

Or they’re actively investing in healthcare companies and the industry as a whole.

Great, what could go wrong if WebMD becomes a chatbot and tells you in one prompt that you may have a cold or cancer?

Well, seems like we live in this reality now.

There is so much to talk about and cover, so let’s get started right away!

PS: If you enjoy this newsletter and believe your friends or family would too, a recommendation would be greatly appreciated!

ChatGPT Health.

This is the new shiny object in the AI realm, and I can’t believe that it didn’t even take this long to write about this.

AI companies such as OpenAI have discovered that most users are so brainwashed that they trust their chatbot with questions about their health.

According to OpenAI’s press release, they aim to:

Provide a dedicated experience that securely brings your health information and ChatGPT’s intelligence together to help you feel more informed, prepared, and confident as you navigate your health.

Source: X

Funnily enough, there was also the following clip of Ben Affleck this week, in which he explained why AI is a powerful tool but not a replacement for humanity.

And he is 100% right!

AI is still a tool, not the end-all solution! This couldn’t be more apparent with this healthcare stuff now.

It seems like AI companies believe they can just release a new product and the world is gonna eat it up.

Forget all the dangerous aspects of it, with people asking ChatGPT if they got cancer or are just sick.

The Internet has already shown that this doesn’t work with WebMD, but Sam Altman and his crew seem to ignore it.

More on him and Elon Musk’s lawsuit later…

Nevertheless, it seems these AI companies live in a reality distortion field where they choose to ignore dangers.

Back to the topic at hand.

The healthcare trend seems to have caught on with other AI companies as well: OpenAI is investing in a healthcare startup called Torch, and Anthropic has also released a healthcare product.

The guys over at TPBN did a great recap about this in their latest episode:

Source: YouTube

Anthropic is eager to push new products anyway, with a new agentic mode called Claude Cowork. More on that in Tabs Worth Opening.

Google also had a big week with the Apple partnership announcement for Siri (we may finally see a working Siri after 15 years) and the release of a healthcare product called MedGemma.

At the end of the day, all of these AI companies are going after other markets and trying to infiltrate them with untested, highly speculative products to boost their valuations.

I also see a lot of parallels to the dot-com bubble, where the solution to everything is AI, and no one is seeing the big picture: products have to work, and people have to get benefits out of them!

We shall see how long it takes for the first lawsuit in which a bad ChatGPT Health recommendation harmed someone.

Speaking of lawsuits, OpenAI and especially Sam Altman seem to be in many courtrooms very soon.

Elon Musk has taken upon himself to sue Sam Altman and OpenAI over its founding story, or how Musk financed the company, aka a non-profit, in the early days.

Oakland federal judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers set a new trial date for the legal dispute, and it seems to be a long one!

Jury selection kicks off Monday, 27 April.

The trial itself starts the next day, and could drag on for four weeks, all the way through 22 May.

Source: YouTube

That’s according to the court docket, for those keeping score at home.

There is a lot on the line for OpenAI and Sam Altman!

Musk claims the company was initially funded as an open-source non-profit, and that he associated certain milestones and criteria with each funding round in 2015.

Altman promised to open-source and keep it this way as well. While there is an open-source model for OpenAI, it’s not good enough according to Musk.

He now aims to sue OpenAI and reclaim his participation, or at least get paid what he thinks he deserves.

Maybe this is why OpenAI is planning to put ads in its free product.

Gotta make and have money for your expensive lawyers somehow…

Healthcare and AI, in addition to lawsuits, were the stories of the week, but there was even more to talk about.

The following pieces or links are Tabs Worth Opening.

• The 2026 AI outlooks are in: TechCrunch is the latest tech media outlet to write its outlook for 2026 and beyond. According to them, it will be a year of pragmatism and agents becoming more practical. Let’s see…

• The UAE leads the world in AI usage: It’s not surprising that AI has taken over the world, and Axios has reported on each country’s usage. Surprisingly, the U.S. is lagging behind big time.

• Big agencies scale faster than ever before: According to this study, big agencies grow the fastest ever, and most of that is due to AI and improved workflows.

• Wanna discover a new book? Use this tool: I love to find new tools or websites that teach you about a new section of the Internet. This week, it’s Recommed Me a Book, where you can read snippets and discover new titles for a lazy Sunday reading session.

• How Meta is wasting $600 billion on AI: The Wall Street Millennial YouTube channel is one of the best storytellers out there and has released a new video about Zuckerberg’s AI plans and why they may flop…

And that’s a wrap for the third full issue of Internet Native Capital.

There is never a dull week on the Internet, and the AI newscycle seems to be going down a dark path.

But this is why we show up: either write content, as I do, or engage online on X.

I’m excited to see where the next news is taking us and what the outcome of the Elon vs. Sam trial will be.

Until then, enjoy browsing the Internet.

See ya!

Sup! 👋

New Year, New Me.

You’ve definitely heard or said this at least once in your life.

2026 seems to be the embodiment of this saying, and there is so much that happened in the last 10 days on the Internet alone.

I didn’t see a filter or what to describe everything, so I went for the only logical option: Memes!

With that in mind, grab a coffee or tea, kick back, and enjoy the start to 2026 explained through memes or funny tweets.

PS: With all this New Year’s talk, I forgot to wish you a great start to 2026! I hope you were able to enjoy the holidays with your family and friends.

PPS: If you enjoy this newsletter and believe your friends or family would too, a recommendation would be greatly appreciated!

This has been the top story of the new year, with the capture and extraction of former dictator, I mean president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro.

Source: X

The Trump Administration decided to drop some special forces, or Marines, I don’t know how to call them in detail, and extract the former head of a very rich oil nation.

This move sparked countless reactions from diplomats, including Ursula von der Leyen. She said the EU is “monitoring the situation.”

As you can imagine, the Internet used these statements to make some killer memes. IMO, the following ones are the best ones to share:

Source: X

There had to be an EU joke in there as well. I mean, how couldn’t you not have made that after the OG of the saying came about…

Source: X

And it seems like the extraction is also following a certain “way of life”…

Source: X

But obviously, the U.S. didn’t just do this to remove a dictator (which has been celebrated immensely on the streets of Venezuela, by the way).

It actually did this to get access to loads of oil and power. The good old-fashioned CIA powerplay, if I may say so…

Trump didn’t stop there, though. After the extraction, he went a step further and gave Blackstone a giant middle finger.

In a rant on Truth Social, he effectively took power away from one of the most influential PE houses.

He said that the current administration is restricting the ability of private equity giants such as Blackstone (OK, he didn’t mention them by name in the release, but everyone knew) to buy up family homes.

Source: X

The Internet was also peaking with this situation and called out Trump.

Blackstone CEO and Chairman Steve Schwarzman must have been a little sad boy like Kendall Roy after spending so much money on the Trump campaign and getting this in return.

Source: X

All of this news happened within 72 hours. At one point, the entire Internet felt overwhelmed, and the number of situations to monitor became simply too many…

Luckily, the first week of the year is over. Let’s hope for some quieter ones in the coming days.

BAAAANG! Wrong thought!

The second week of the year was just as intense…

So far, the year has been pretty flat for assets, Bitcoin, and crypto alike.

But all of this changed on 12 January when Jerome Powell released the following video:

Source: X

In it, he mentions how he’s basically fighting back against the Trump Administration. They are threatening to investigate the Fed for Powell’s false statements last June.

While I’m a big critic of central banks and think they’re their own cartel, abusing a justice department to go after them is next level.

The markets reacted wildly to this, with Bitcoin soaring 5% since the video and the S&P 500 hitting a new all-time high along with gold and silver.

Source: X

But that’s not what we will be talking about; instead, we focus on the memes again.

And boy oh boy, there were many to choose from. I think the following describes the biggest news of the week best:

Source: X

At one point, I had to write this article and finish it. It felt like I could have included many more and extended each week.

For real, now.

Let’s see what 2026 has left in store for us.

So far, we’re off with a bang!

Next to the entire Venezuela and Blackstone story, there is also a lot more happening.

The following pieces or links are Tabs Worth Opening.

• It’s the consumer watchdog against Google (again): It seems like Google’s new AI shopping tool is under scrutiny from a consumer watchdog. Both sides argue, and no one wants to admit blame…

• LEGO is stepping up in the Pokémon department: LEGO is a passion of mine. There is something to sitting at your kitchen table and building something. Seems like I need to put down some money again for a few sets.

• Claude wants to automate your entire workflow: Another month and another announcement by Claude and Anthropic. This time, they want to use the Claude Code framework and offer a fully automated AI suite.

• This documentary about the Murdoch family: The Murdoch family is a fascinating, IRL example of power and corruption. This documentary shows its rise to success and why Succession is such a great TV show about the family.

• Tim Higgins new book “iWar”: Another great book to read. It’s especially intriguing if you want to find out about Apple’s monopoly and how Epic Games, Spotify, and Google fight against it.

And that’s a wrap for the second full issue of Internet Native Capital.

It’s been a crazy start to the year, and I’ve seen that this small publication is already gaining some traction on Substack.

Thanks to all the new subscribers and to all existing ones. It’s always a pleasure to write and recap these events for you, and I already look forward to the next meme/news dump.

See ya!

Sup! 👋

In today’s issue, I want to focus on the Warner Bros. and whoever is acquiring them saga.

Not because there aren’t enough stories about the whole matter (let alone with the side stories, you can write an entire book), but because it teaches us a lot about content knowledge.

Additionally, it was the perfect X shitshow, with many VCs or close buddies of theirs actively involved in trying to close the deal.

It was, or still is, the real-life version of HBO’s (ironic, I know) Succession, where too many memes and clips were shared in an effort to explain the deal.

With that in mind, let’s dive into the whole thing and figure out what else has been going on the Internet.

PS: If you enjoy this newsletter and believe your friends or family would too, a recommendation would be greatly appreciated!

Netflix won.

That’s the short version of the Warner Bros. Discovery saga that’s been unfolding since September, but the long version is way more entertaining.

David Ellison’s Paramount, fresh off an $8 billion Skydance merger, launched a hostile $108 billion takeover bid to snatch Warner away from Netflix’s $72 billion deal.

Warner Bros. told them to pound sand on 17 December, calling the offer “inadequate” and questioning whether Larry Ellison’s revocable trust would actually fund it.

Even Jared Kushner’s investment fund backed out, and he’s the first guy to pull the trigger when it comes to deals like this!

Therefore, the more logical move was to go with Netflix and get rid of all the toxic assets on Warner Bros. ' balance sheet.

However, there is one detail to note: the Internet-native company, Netflix, won, while a legacy studio like Paramount lost out.

So in short.

The Streaming Wars Are Over, and Legacy Media Lost!

These legacy media companies are scrambling to merge because they’re getting demolished by the very companies they’re now begging to acquire them.

The irony is almost too perfect.

Disney, Paramount, and Warner Bros. spent decades building monopolies through vertical integration and crushing competition.

Now they’re being vertically integrated themselves by tech companies that actually understand how people consume content.

The internet didn’t care about your cable bundles, and consumers definitely didn’t care about your 47 different streaming services.

Which is why Netflix is the better play! It actually knows what it’s doing.

They’re buying Warner Bros. Studios and HBO Max because they want the content library and production capabilities, not because they’re desperately trying to stay relevant.

Netflix focuses purely on streaming.

They’re not trying to manage dying cable networks or pretending linear TV has a future.

Paramount’s bid would have combined two struggling legacy media empires, each carrying billions in debt.

That’s not a growth strategy; it’s simply rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Netflix gets HBO’s prestige content and Warner Bros.’ theatrical pipeline without the baggage of CBS or the Discovery Channel.

It Could Have Been Worse!

At least with Netflix winning, we don’t have to deal with another streaming service.

Can you imagine if Paramount had won?

We’d probably be looking at “Paramount+ Max Discovery” or whatever nightmare combination they’d come up with, forcing you to subscribe to yet another platform to watch Succession reruns.

The media consolidation is happening either way; let the company that figured out streaming a decade ago run the show.

Better than watching two billionaires play acquisition chicken with shareholder money while pretending they’re saving American media institutions.

Next to the entire Warner Bros. story, there is also a lot more happening.

The following pieces or links are Tabs Worth Opening.

• The Bitcoin Core vs. Knots debate and why you should run your own node: Sun is an excellent privacy and security researcher. He’s also an avid Bitcoiner, and I think he gave a nuanced take on the Core vs. Knots debate a few months ago.

• Claude launched a browser extension to automate everything: The whole browser automation with AI is growing rapidly. Anthropic is jumping on the bandwagon as well. Before you try, be careful with prompt injections!

• Waymo taxis stood still, and an SF blackout is the reason why: I’ve sat in a Waymo in June this year, and I have to say, it’s so funny to ride in them. But I also thought, what if the lights are out? Seems like I was ahead with my thought, as this is precisely what happened this week.

• Mt. Gox’s former CEO is making a comeback with bold claims: Some Bitcoin gossip as well! The former CEO of Mt. Gox, you know, the Japanese exchange that almost broke Bitcoin, is back with an explanation as to why the exchange went bust. It’s pretty vague, but a good read!

• Andrew Ross Sorkin’s new Book “1929”: I’ve gotten this book as a gift, and I absolutely love the detailed outlook on the 1929 stock market crisis, which sparked the Great Depression. Highly recommend it!

And that’s a wrap for the first full issue of Internet Native Capital.

As you can see, it’s quite a lot with many moving parts. But I really enjoy recapping what’s going on currently and showing the ins and outs of the interwebs.

Next up will be a deep dive into Bitcoin developers’ identity crisis and what it means for the industry.

Until then, have a great one!

See ya!

Sup! 👋

Before I get to the meat of the bone, I want to wish every one of you a very Merry Christmas!

I hope you were able to enjoy time with your loved ones, eat well, and get or give many gifts.

Christmas is always a great time to reflect, sit back, and think about your next steps.

Which is what I did as well in the past days, and this is what I will be talking about today!

My Substack is no longer associated with my personal name, but instead runs under the Internet Native Capital handle.

The idea is simple: I want to highlight everything that I find interesting on the Internet and give it a funny spin.

I then turn this into a unique newsletter where you, as the reader, get to know all the latest gossip, deals, and even spicy takes in a simple, straightforward way.

My goal is to turn Internet Native Capital into the interwebs' information newsletter.

PS: If you enjoy this newsletter and believe your friends or family would too, a recommendation would be greatly appreciated!

As you can see, there is also a theme to it. I will break the newsletter’s themes into sections.

There will always be a deep dive in the beginning, where I either write about the latest media deal, some X beef, or a rant about Bitcoin.

Then you’ll see a breakdown with the 10101010101 banner and maybe a meme or video I would urge you to watch.

Additionally, I will feature the latest AI developments, new prompts I’ve found, a newsletter I read, or a good book I’m currently enjoying.

To not stretch this first newsletter too much, I wanted to highlight what I will be focusing on this week and next week.

You will mostly find a write-up about Bitcoin’s identity crisis with developers, as well as the latest Warner Bros - Bear Hug drama.

Loads to write and talk about, so make sure to check the latest issue in your inbox or the Substack app.

And speaking of bear hugs and media deals. I couldn’t have left without a great meme.

Because we’re in the festive season and the Warner Bros drama is still unfolding, who could have been better than Mr. Roy Logan himself, wishing you Merry Christmas!

I’m excited to launch this newsletter and look forward to the following issues.

See ya!