Tech policy wonk. Former Tech Strategy @Georgetown/@Cloudflare/Senate/White House/FCC/IBM/@BGOV/MSFT. Accelerating the future of the Net & the Cloud
Washington, DC
Joined June 2007
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Michael Nelson retweeted
Russia's Doppelganger influence operation -- a product of the Russian Presidential Administration -- doesn't only peddle lies about Ukraine and the United States on social media. It built a fake Israeli think tank, the International Burke Institute, to boost a "sovereignty index," which was cited by a host of media outlets. Russia ranks fourth for "true sovereignty." vsquare.org/journalist-admit…
Michael Nelson retweeted
Aside from the shocking substance of this story, what's amazing is how it was unearthed by Cole. The short version: The Russians were able to penetrate Jared Kushner's iPhone and extract screenshots and data. Then, a Russian intel official was captured by Dutch intelligence (!) and flipped. The Dutch believed Kushner may have been acting on behalf of Russia, so pursued him as an intel target and were able to get into his phone.
They did not find any evidence of Russian collusion, instead they watched him moving hundreds of millions of dollars from slush funds created by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, one of them housed in Israel's central bank.
Incredible reporting, and if Democrats have any sense, they will pull on these threads and learn a lot more about this money.
Explosive story many years in the making, now out in Vanity Fair by Matthew Cole (who will be on Breaking Points next week, and publishing soon in @DropSiteNews):
Saudi Arabia and the UAE set up multi-billion slush funds for Jared Kushner to use.
Iran-Contra 2 here (except with Iran-Contra, at least the US got some hostages released. Not clear what we got out of this one.)
Michael Nelson retweeted
Marc Andreessen says the gap between what AI-native startups and incumbents think AI can do is the widest he’s ever seen:
"The AI-native early stage startups have just a completely different view on what they can do with AI than the typical incumbents in almost any industry, almost without exception."
"AI is just racing ahead in capability even week by week... There are going to be a lot of industries that are really up for grabs in a fundamentally more profound way than maybe has been the case in the past."
"The founders are gonna have a level of superpowers coming from the use of these tools and these technologies that they just simply haven't had in the past... Had I had Astra and Netscape in 1994, like, oh my God. Like, Ben, what would you and I have been able to do at Netscape?"
"Those entrepreneurs are gonna color way outside the lines. We already see this. They're not gonna think of themselves as like, 'I'm just a software company,' or, 'I'm just a hardware company,' or even, 'I'm just an AI company.'"
@pmarca @bhorowitz
Today, a16z Crypto is becoming a16z Frontier.
Since joining a16z in 2013, @cdixon has focused on technologies that look futuristic well before they reach the mainstream. Those themes led to investments in Oculus, Skydio, Zipline, Coinbase, Solana, and Uniswap.
Frontier expands that mandate beyond crypto to back "outer planet" founders who are building new technologies and creating markets that may take years to develop.
Chris joins @pmarca, @bhorowitz, and @eriktorenberg to discuss why crypto has become part of the broader tech landscape, why Frontier fills a hole in the firm's architecture, and why they'd rather be too early than too late.
They also get into why the gap between AI-native startups and incumbents is the widest Marc has ever seen, how AI could pull forward 20 years of frontier technology, why stablecoins may become the way AI agents pay each other, how AI is breaking the internet's business model, and why today's 18-year-olds are about to become superhumans.
0:50 Introducing a16z Frontier
2:49 Smartphone parts to drones and VR
4:47 Backing the "outer planets"
7:11 Good ideas that look like bad ideas
10:43 The JP Morgan photo in Marc's office
15:13 Good tech ideas eventually work
16:53 AI may pull tech 20 years forward
18:18 The widest AI gap Marc's ever seen
22:06 Workers adopt AI before companies do
26:32 Old use cases vs. AI-native ones
30:08 Beyond "product manager brain"
34:45 AI can reverse engineer any hardware
38:23 The case for open source AI
46:36 How AI breaks the internet's model
49:11 VR, homebrew hacking, multiplayer AI
54:00 If you're 18, study "modern alchemy"
YouTube: youtu.be/-9XQMHhpypc
Not an offer or solicitation. None of the information herein should be taken as investment advice; Some of the companies mentioned are portfolio companies of a16z. Please see a16z.com/disclosures for more information. A list of investments made by a16z is available at a16z.com/portfolio.
Michael Nelson retweeted
The GRU hacked into Jared Kushner's iPhone. Dutch military intelligence (MIVD) then recruited a GRU spy who gave them access to the hacked phone. What MIVD discovered was that Kushner had access to two bank accounts --one Azerbaijani, the other Israeli --where Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Emirati ruler Mohammed bin Zayed deposited money. It sounds like a slightly far-fetched episode of "Slow Horses," but it's real. And it proves just how eye-poppingly corrupt this administration was and continues to be as its "special envoy" decides the fate of tens of millions in Europe in the Middle East. Simply incredible reporting by Matthew Cole, drawn from his new book on Kushner. vanityfair.com/story/jared-k…
Michael Nelson retweeted
I asked @So8res how far countries should go—assuming all diplomatic efforts have failed—to prevent the creation of a superintelligence. Based on his answer, let’s hope it doesn’t get to that point.
Watch our full discussion about how to avoid an AI apocalypse here: youtube.com/watch?v=n8xpeNhj…
Michael Nelson retweeted
Here are quotes from today's column by one of the main ideologues of the Russian World - Sergei Karaganov. It's titled "A Final Farewell to Europe".
I strongly recommend reading it.
"We would never have become Great Russia - the world's largest, most culturally, nationally, and religiously open country, united through a rigid vertical of power around the Russian people and language - were it not for the Mongolian political and ideological heritage."
"In the military doctrine there is a clear indication and, in case of extreme necessity, the readiness to deliver nuclear strikes against key European countries that are inflaming anti-Russian hysteria while simultaneously supporting the war in Ukraine. Our restraint and peacefulness of recent decades have shown themselves to be counterproductive. They contributed to the revival of the worst in European political culture. Tough deterrence is necessary regarding Europe."
The link is in the first comment.
Russian oligarch Malofeev: I believe that Putin is not right that he's not using our nuclear weapon now.
British journalist Piers Morgan interviewed Russian "Orthodox oligarch" Malofeev.
He asked him to name one critical thing about Putin.
Malofeev: I believe that Putin is not right that he's not using our nuclear weapon now.
Piers Morgan: You want him to use nuclear weapons now?
Malofeev: Yes. For this war to come to an end. To stop killing.
Piers Morgan: So your main criticism of your president is he's not nuking everybody. Wow.
A magnificent mansion.
Good choice, @AsiaSociety!
Asia has a new home in the nation’s capital.
The historic Blaine Mansion in Dupont Circle has been the home of presidential candidates, ambassadors and even the United Nations. Over 145 years, its DNA has been thoroughly embedded within the cultural and political fabric of Washington DC.
From early 2027, this remarkable building will begin a new chapter as Asia Society’s permanent home in Washington. It will house our first-class Policy Institute and Center for China Analysis, and provide a new venue for cultural events and conversations.
Michael Nelson retweeted
Misuse by malicious actors is a risk with any powerful technology; but in the case of AI, the consequences could be catastrophic.
Very interesting analysis by @StephenLCasper on how AI developers' decisions can influence cyber, bio, and chemical terrorism risks.
🚨New paper (possibly the most important one I have written yet).
We think that as early as 2027 or 2028, there might be a major AI-enabled terrorism event. We conducted a pre-mortem, made 9 falsifiable predictions, and wrote 2 concrete scenarios.
Led by @KamacheeMax.
Michael Nelson retweeted
As I pointed out about Trump and his circle years ago, it’s not just that they lie, it’s that their lies always echo Russian talking points. It’s not a coincidence. You can arrive independently at the truth, but not at the same lie.
Michael Nelson retweeted
NEWS: I obtained a recording of Peter Thiel's latest Nashville Antichrist lectures. In his third talk delivered on Oct. 12, he breaks with the Trump admin on the U.S. war with Iran. “I think we should not have done it,” he said. “There were a lot of mistakes that were made.”
politico.com/news/2026/10/21…
Michael Nelson retweeted
Musk is as ‘whimsical, unprincipled, and immoral’ as Donald Trump: Fmr. CIA Director yahoo.com/news/videos/musk-w…
Michael Nelson retweeted
Our new show with NPR, Machine Gods, is finally here! Episode 1 is live wherever you get your podcasts.
The official podcast of the singularity starts today!
youtube.com/watch?v=OKDai2_a…
Michael Nelson retweeted
Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO and current CEO of Relativity Space, says AI will eliminate much of the coordination layer inside large companies.
The 10,000-person company of today could become far leaner, built around inventors, salespeople and leaders.
AI won't just automate tasks. It will redesign the organization.
"You've got a couple thousand people you don't need."
Michael Nelson retweeted
Last year, @So8res co-authored a book with the amazing title "If Anyone Builds it, Everyone Dies." It laid out, in book length, an argument that he and @ESYudkowsky have been making for many years: superintelligent AI will lead to human extinction. Then, this September, the argument got new attention when @hilbertspaess quit Anthropic and posted on X that AI companies are “gambling with our lives.” In a year full of wild AI stories, Coxon’s is one of the biggest, and it has led to all sorts of conversations about what we should do about AI safety and whether we need to seriously consider shutting down the frontier labs.
I have many concerns about AI, but I’m skeptical it will actually kill us all. So I sat down with Nate to understand why he thinks we’re on the path to annihilation. We went back and forth on how real the risks are, what an AI apocalypse looks like, and the lengths we should go to stop it. We talked about the ethics of air strikes on data centers, and whether talking about AI extinction risks makes them more likely. This conversation went to a lot of thorny but interesting places—and Nate was game for all of them.
I hope you watch and subscribe. youtube.com/watch?v=n8xpeNhj…
Michael Nelson retweeted
Fascinating. Amazon says it has telemetry showing PHP2Shell was being exploited on Oct. 17—that is, four days prior to public disclosure.
Not known who was doing it. "It remains unclear how the actor acquired exploit information prior to disclosure."
aws.amazon.com/blogs/securit…
More on #PutinsPals: telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/10…
I’ll stipulate that Trump is an agent of Putin.
Go down the checklist.
1. Destroyed the Western alliance? Putin wanted that.
2. Threatened a NATO ally over Greenland? Putin wanted that.
3. Pulled out of the intermediate nuclear pact? Putin wanted that.
4. Withdrawing 25-40,000 troops from Western Europe while Russian bellicosity is rising? Putin wanted that.
5. Russian satellites giving coordinates to Iranians killing our soldiers, and his response is “they kill us, we kill them”? What American president says that?
I think he’s been compromised.
The election of Donald Trump may be the greatest foreign policy success in post-Czarist Russian history.
Michael Nelson retweeted
Wikipedia, which went online in January, 2001, is now the greatest compendium of human knowledge ever assembled. Yet in the last four years, it has lost 25 per cent of its traffic—more than a billion monthly visitors. Since the site recruits its editors from its audience, this dip also threatens its growth and quality. Many users have been intercepted by A.I. “It’s a cruelly ironic fate,” Julian Lucas writes. Wikipedia was the single most important training corpus in the history of artificial intelligence. Now artificial intelligence is threatening its survival. Read Lucas’s report on the future of Wikipedia: newyorker.com/books/under-re…
