THE KEN PREMIUM

Listen to full episodes 1-4 weeks before others

US$2,99/month

Zero Shot

The Ken

Join Brady Ng, Praveen Gopal Krishnan, and Rohin Dharmakumar of The Ken as they discuss the big ideas in artificial intelligence. You’ll get the macro view, explore their experiments in practical applications, go deeper than the news coverage you’ve seen, and hear about the implications of the latest developments. Nothing is off the table.

  1. Habitually outlandish valuations, AI’s trough of disillusionment

    4 DAYS AGO

    Habitually outlandish valuations, AI’s trough of disillusionment

    Welcome to Zero Shot, The Ken’s weekly podcast that interprets the latest big moves in artificial intelligence—in India and around the world. This week, Praveen is on leave, but our two other co-hosts held down the fort.  Brady took inspiration from the tagline of a game show, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, to consider some of the wild claims and projections made by OpenAI. Aside from CEO Sam Altman’s public statements, he considered CFO Sarah Friar’s past professional moves, where she made similar (but not as exaggerated) claims about revenue projections when she was Nextdoor’s CEO. It’s a bit of information that retail investors could consider when OpenAI prepares to go public. Then, Rohin described how AI products lost their novelty in 2025, entering the trough of disillusionment as described by the Gartner hype cycle. This presents an opportunity for companies that can develop products with an “anti-AI premium”, where the absence of artificial intelligence could find fans in customers.  The cover art of Zero Shot is generated by AI. Everything else is made by humans, just like all articles, columns, newsletters, and other podcasts created by The Ken. If you have comments, critiques, or suggestions, you should share them with us! Write in at zeroshot@the-ken.com. We respond to every listener who contacts us. Additional Reading Whose Line Is It Anyway?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whose_Line_Is_It_Anyway%3F_(American_TV_series) Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre by Keith Johnstonehttps://www.amazon.com/Impro-Improvisation-Theatre-Keith-Johnstone/dp/0878301178 Why OpenAI went into crisis PR mode (in November)https://edition.cnn.com/2025/11/06/tech/openai-backtracks-government-support-chip-investments Nextdoor secures dismissal with prejudice in securities class actionhttps://www.cooley.com/news/coverage/2025/2025-11-20-nextdoor-secures-dismissal-with-prejudice-in-securities-class-action ‘How to disable all the AI features in Firefox to increase performance?’https://askubuntu.com/questions/1556081/how-to-disable-all-the-ai-features-in-firefox-to-increase-performance The Gartner hype cyclehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle Eugen Rochko: ‘I've finally switched to the @Vivaldi browser.’https://mas.to/@Gargron@mastodon.social/115737483372515885 Meta tolerates rampant ad fraud from China to safeguard billions in revenuehttps://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-tolerates-rampant-ad-fraud-china-safeguard-billions-revenue-2025-12-15/ LG will let TV owners delete Microsoft Copilot after customer outcryhttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-18/lg-will-let-tv-owners-delete-microsoft-copilot-after-customer-complaints

    50 min
  2. Energy engineers, SaaS prices and the moment of AI truth, Broadcom and the bubble

    17 DEC

    Energy engineers, SaaS prices and the moment of AI truth, Broadcom and the bubble

    Welcome back to Zero Shot, where Brady, Praveen, and Rohin take on the big ideas and latest developments in artificial intelligence every Wednesday. This week, Praveen looks at a new future career in India—the energy engineer. With Amazon and Microsoft committing to a combined $52.5 billion of investments in India, these tech giants’ data centres will require immense power. India currently doesn’t produce enough renewable energy to service this demand, and even if there were enough power, there are other hurdles. Rohin considers how SaaS companies are contending with an existential crisis. If their clients can replace their software with AI agents, then what value do SaaS companies hold in the future? Some providers have opted to insert AI capabilities into their products and raise their prices, but that is not sustainable in the long run.  Brady looked at Broadcom’s stock slump and provided another way to think about the AI investment bubble. The company designs chips for Google. Its revenue has shot up but the company is trapped in fulfilling contracts with lower margins. This all comes down to the picks-and-shovels vendors being unable to capture value in the AI supply chain. It’s another sign that the likes of Google, Microsoft, and Meta will reap the biggest benefits, no matter how the business of AI transforms in the coming years. The cover art of Zero Shot is generated by AI. Everything else is made by humans. We love to hear from our listeners! If you have comments, critiques, or suggestions, write to us at zeroshot@the-ken.com.  * Additional Reading Tower of the Sunhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_the_Sun I’m Kenyan. I don’t write like ChatGPT. ChatGPT writes like mehttps://marcusolang.substack.com/p/im-kenyan-i-dont-write-like-chatgpt The Ken’s Case-Build Competition: Disrupt the Incumbentshttps://the-ken.com/case-competition-2025/submissions/  Microsoft and Amazon’s multibillion-dollar bets on Indiahttps://www.ft.com/content/d564ba34-7514-43ca-90db-b4fa01737a10 India’s e-bus dream is finally coming to life. The power grid can’t keep uphttps://the-ken.com/story/indias-e-bus-dream-is-finally-coming-to-life-no-one-told-the-power-grid/ AI agents are starting to eat SaaShttps://martinalderson.com/posts/ai-agents-are-starting-to-eat-saas/ Broadcom tumbles 11% despite blockbuster earnings as ‘AI angst’ weighs on Oracle, Nvidiahttps://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/12/broadcom-tumbles-10percent-after-earnings-as-ai-trade-sells-off-.html Global funds view Indian stocks as a top hedge against AI riskshttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-14/global-funds-view-indian-stocks-as-a-top-hedge-against-ai-risks

    53 min
  3. People evaluating people, AI’s changing seasons, shattering the mobile internet

    10 DEC • THE KEN PREMIUM ONLY

    People evaluating people, AI’s changing seasons, shattering the mobile internet

    Welcome back to Zero Shot, where Rohin, Praveen, and Brady deliver their takes on new developments in artificial intelligence every Wednesday. This week, Rohin considers how AI will change the way employers hire. With AI-generated responses being the norm, hiring managers see a larger variation between the quality of submitted materials and in-person interviews than ever before. Applicants might need to “show and tell” to demonstrate their expertise. The importance of strong verbal communication, quick response times, and language fluency could also matter more.  Then, Praveen takes us through the four seasons of AI and how Deepseek acknowledged a growing gap between closed and open-source language models, which marks the difference between AI development in the US and China. Naturally, Deepseek is building new stuff: an attention mechanism that will be used in its newer models to handle long context more efficiently. Finally, Brady maps out how mobile apps will soon become pipes that feed agents. A new ZTE phone that is steered by an AI agent developed by Bytedance offers a glimpse into the future, where screens matter less and “machine users” emerge. There will need to be new ways of thinking about the metrics that matter—daily active users and session lengths won’t tell us much—and there are other fundamental implications for UI/UX design. Zero Shot’s cover art is generated by AI. Everything else is made by humans. Send us your ideas, critiques, and suggestions at zeroshot@the-ken.com, or drop us a note just to say hi. We love hearing from our listeners. * Additional Reading Worry, the explainer is deadhttps://www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/sorry-the-explainer-is-dead/ Japanese game studio tasks job seekers to draw in front of them to make sure their portfolios aren't AI-madehttps://80.lv/articles/japanese-game-studio-tasks-job-seekers-to-draw-in-front-of-them-to-make-sure-their-portfolios-aren-t-ai-made Why does AI write like… that?https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/magazine/chatbot-writing-style.html What it’s like to interview a software engineer preparing with AIhttps://www.kapwing.com/blog/what-its-like-to-interview-a-software-engineer-preparing-with-ai/ “There are four seasons in a year”https://x.com/mehulmpt/status/1995474826031460466 DeepSeek-V3.2: Pushing the frontier of open large language modelshttps://arxiv.org/abs/2512.02556 Alibaba Cloud founder expects big AI shakeup after OpenAI hypehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0PaVrpFD14   Demo of ByteDance’s AI agent on a ZTE phonehttps://x.com/TaylorOgan/status/1996539953979785521 AI browsers aren’t smart enough yet to take over the internethttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-12-08/what-is-agentic-browsing-and-why-are-ai-browsers-not-replacing-chrome-yet Woman hailed as hero for smashing man’s Meta smart glasses on subwayhttps://futurism.com/future-society/woman-hero-smashing-meta-smart-glasses-subway OpenAI, ARIA, and SEO: Making the web worsehttps://adrianroselli.com/2025/10/openai-aria-and-seo-making-the-web-worse.html Trump administration moves to deny visas to factcheckers and content moderatorshttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/05/trump-administration-us-visa-crackdown

    58 min
  4. One-human unicorns, Suno’s musical future, ‘back to the age of research’

    3 DEC • THE KEN PREMIUM ONLY

    One-human unicorns, Suno’s musical future, ‘back to the age of research’

    Welcome back to Zero Shot, where Praveen, Brady, and Rohin discuss the biggest moves in artificial intelligence. This week, Brady mulls over the possibility of running a one-human unicorn—an idea whose most vocal proponent is Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO. He references the second season of Shell Game, a podcast where the host is experimenting with building a startup involving AI agent co-founders and colleagues. This brings about larger ethical and philosophical questions, such as whether humans always need to maintain a sense of community and companionship when they’re tackling big goals. Rohin points to Suno’s $250 million fundraise and the platform’s strategy to create, engage, and monetise in the long run. Besides, when it comes to music that is generated from prompts, ownership and intellectual property remain a concern. Suno is positioned as a platform where users can visit and discover new music, which brings to mind Sora, OpenAI’s app for generating short videos. The question is whether users will see Suno as a trusted place that hosts engaging, unique music. Finally, Praveen visits Ilya Sutskever’s appearance on Dwarkesh Podcast. Sutskever was the chief scientist and a co-founder of OpenAI, and makes the point that there is enough compute to prove out almost any idea involving artificial intelligence. This type of work doesn’t require the largest amount of compute, so “we are no longer in the age of scaling; we’re back in the age of research.” Zero Shot’s cover art is generated using AI. Everything else is made by humans. If you have suggestions, critiques, or fresh ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Write to us at zeroshot@the-ken.com, or just drop us a note to say hi. Additional Reading Tega Brain’s Slop Evaderhttps://tegabrain.com/Slop-Evader  Low-background steelhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel  The Plasticene era: Current uncertainties in estimates of the hazards posed by tiny plastic particles on soils and terrestrial invertebrateshttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969724023957  OpenAI takes stake in Thrive Holdings in latest circular dealhttps://www.ft.com/content/53e2003e-c5c0-42a1-937a-eaea77ac4d41  Accenture dubs 800,000 staff ‘reinventors’ amid shift to AIhttps://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/dec/01/accenture-rebrands-staff-reinventors-ai-artificial-intelligence  ‘Google Antigravity just deleted the contents of my whole drive’https://old.reddit.com/r/google_antigravity/comments/1p82or6/google_antigravity_just_deleted_the_contents_of/  Shell Game, Season 2https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shell-game/id1753117762  James Watson and Edward O. Wilson: An Intellectual Ententehttps://www.harvardmagazine.com/2009/09/james-watson-edward-o-wilson-intellectual-entente  A.F. Steadman reads the prologue of Skandar and the Unicorn Thiefhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmzH_IcYWQY  Suno creates an entire Spotify catalog’s worth of music every two weeks, says investor pitch deck for $250M fundraisehttps://www.billboard.com/pro/suno-creates-spotify-catalog-music-two-weeks-pitch-deck/  Silicon Valley has more companies than ideas – Illya Sutskeverhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNq0PWHIgOw  Jack Dorsey funds diVine, a Vine reboot that includes Vine's video archive | TechCrunchhttps://techcrunch.com/2025/11/12/jack-dorsey-funds-divine-a-vine-reboot-that-includes-vines-video-archive/

    53 min
  5. Perplexity kills student incentives, moving past peak Nvidia, the Google Empire strikes back

    26 NOV • THE KEN PREMIUM ONLY

    Perplexity kills student incentives, moving past peak Nvidia, the Google Empire strikes back

    Welcome back to Zero Shot, where Brady, Praveen, and Rohin offer their perspectives on the latest developments in artificial intelligence. This week, Praveen describes how Perplexity aborted its Campus Partner Programme in India after allegations of fraud surfaced. In a bid to drum up usage for its Comet browser, Perplexity had rolled out a referral-for-pay system, enticing students to convince others to download the AI browser… except they may have been legions of bots. If living, breathing people can’t be convinced to use Comet, then what does that say about it as a product? Rohin dived into the successes of Nvidia, which is the most successful “shovel seller” among companies in the AI sector. Advanced sales of its Blackwell and Rubin chips over the next 14 months, for instance, have reached $500 billion. But given how Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs) are now able to train state-of-the-art language models, the lustre around Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs) has faded just a bit. Finally, Brady unpacks the rollout of Gemini 3 by Google, which has compelled even OpenAI’s Sam Altman to pause and acknowledge that it’s a threat to everyone else. Gemini 3 excels at visual tasks, and it’s part of the architecture that makes Google’s new integrated development environment Antigravity stand out. Not only does Google have this advanced language model, but also the trust of enterprise and retail users—setting it apart from other companies such as OpenAI.  Zero Shot’s cover art is generated using AI. Everything else is made by humans. If you have fresh ideas, critiques, or suggestions, we’d love to hear from you. Drop us a note at zeroshot@the-ken.com, or just write to us to say hi. Additional Reading ‘It’s hell for us here’: Mumbai families suffer as data centres keep the city hooked on coalhttps://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/nov/24/mumbai-datacentres-coal-air-pollution  ‘AI eats the world’, November 2025https://www.ben-evans.com/presentations  Insurers retreat from AI cover as risk of multibillion-dollar claims mountshttps://www.ft.com/content/abfe9741-f438-4ed6-a673-075ec177dc62  ‘Perplexity cancels Campus Partner Programme in India after widespread fraud’https://www.theleftshift.com/perplexity-cancels-campus-partner-programme-in-india-after-widespread-fraud/  ‘Earn thousands as a Campus Partner’ of Perplexityhttps://x.com/sherlock_ux/status/1980849775382786069?s=20  ‘Perplexity has cancelled its Campus Partner Programme in India following allegations of fraud tied to its referral system’https://x.com/arsh_goyal/status/1985255590038524346?s=20  The algorithm that detected a $610 billion fraud: How machine intelligence exposed the AI industry’s circular financing schemehttps://substack.com/home/post/p-179453867  Nvidia’s ‘I’m not Enron’ memo has people asking a lot of questions already answered by that memohttps://www.theverge.com/business/828047/nvidia-enron-conspiracy-accounting  ‘Made by humans’, Perplexity says the quiet part out loud, AI in courtroomshttps://the-ken.com/podcasts/zero-shot/made-by-humans-perplexity-says-the-quiet-part-out-loud-ai-in-courtrooms/  ChatGPT Go's free year turns Indian markets into its biggest test bedhttps://www.business-standard.com/companies/news/chatgpt-go-s-free-year-turns-indian-markets-into-its-biggest-test-bed-125112401042_1.html  “Attention is all you need”https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762  Altman Memo Forecasts ‘Rough Vibes’ Due to Resurgent Googlehttps://www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-ceo-braces-possible-economic-headwinds-catching-resurgent-google

    54 min
  6. Threat models, using taste to defend margins, ChatGPT’s ‘collab’ with Phonepe

    19 NOV • THE KEN PREMIUM ONLY

    Threat models, using taste to defend margins, ChatGPT’s ‘collab’ with Phonepe

    Welcome back to Zero Shot, where Rohin, Praveen, and Brady discover new ideas and interpretations of the latest developments in artificial intelligence. This week, Rohin wonders what the threats are in our regular usage of AI tools and platforms. Conventional ways of safeguarding against exploits work to an extent, but new vectors are emerging for those who are criminally inclined. Brady encounters an ad for Anthropic’s Claude in one of the least likely of places, then examines how the company is creating scarcity around its infinitely scalable product. What appears to be a play to cast Claude as a premium consumer product is an inverse of OpenAI and Perplexity’s strategies, but could also be a move to protect its enterprise margins. Finally, Praveen looks at an OpenAI collaboration that enables Phonepe’s users to create images, seek career advice, get healthy recipes, receive astrological readings, and more. This could be a lead-in to one specific integration that matters much more to Phonepe, but it isn’t clear whether users are willing to share their financial data if it happens. Zero Shot’s cover art is generated using AI. Everything else is made by humans. We love hearing from our listeners! Send your critiques, suggestions, and ideas to zeroshot@the-ken.com, or write to us just to say hi.   Additional Reading: Human behavior is an intuition-pump for AI riskhttps://invertedpassion.com/human-behavior-is-an-intuition-pump-for-ai-risk/ AI and the paperclip problemhttps://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/ai-and-paperclip-problem AI status symbols are popping up everywherehttps://www.businessinsider.com/ai-status-symbols-openai-anthropic-cursor-2025-10 Alexa, Siri, Netflix, Tiktok, ChatGPT, Claude—they all “feel like AI” to consumershttps://menlovc.com/perspective/2025-the-state-of-consumer-ai/ At a major AI conference, one startup got voted most likely to flophttps://www.businessinsider.com/at-an-ai-conference-attendees-were-asked-which-startup-they-would-short-2025-11  Live skydiving with Google Glasshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxmbbtuRszA  PhonePe Announces Strategic Collaboration with OpenAI to Bring ChatGPT to Indian Users at Scalehttps://www.phonepe.com/press/phonepe-announces-strategic-collaboration-with-openai-to-bring-chatgpt-to-indian-users-at-scale/

    55 min
  7. ‘Made by humans’, Perplexity says the quiet part out loud, AI in courtrooms

    12 NOV • THE KEN PREMIUM ONLY

    ‘Made by humans’, Perplexity says the quiet part out loud, AI in courtrooms

    Welcome back to Zero Shot, The Ken’s weekly discussion where Brady, Praveen, and Rohin go beyond the headlines to probe the major shake-ups in artificial intelligence. This week, Brady notices how media producers and creators emphasising how their work is “made by humans”.  This type of disclaimer looks like the beginning of a bifurcation of content into AI-generated output and “handcrafted” media. Take a few steps further and there are consequences for education, contractual agreements, and legal disputes. Rohin looked at Perplexity’s snapback after Amazon sued it over making agentic shopping available via the Comet browser, enabling automation that places orders on behalf of users. For consumers, the question to consider is: would you hand over your credentials to an AI agent and let it represent you, while you shoulder all legal liability for its actions? Finally, Praveen presented AI’s first major use case in the Global South. Tools and platforms such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Adalat AI are speeding up research, stenography, and other tasks in the legal arena, making it possible for court proceedings to move faster. India isn’t alone in this; court systems in other parts of the world such as Brazil and China are using artificial intelligence in their own ways too. Zero Shot’s cover art is generated using AI. Everything else is made by humans. We appreciate your critiques, suggestions, and ideas. Send them to zeroshot@the-ken.com, or write in just to say hi.  If you’d like to sponsor Zero Shot, let’s talk.   Additional Reading Pluribus: “This show was made by humans”https://bsky.app/profile/thespaceshipper.com/post/3m54is34d5c2l Rosalía on Lux: “It’s all human—very much human”https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/arts/music/rosalia-lux-interview.html This year’s Coca-Cola holiday ad exposes one of the biggest problems with AI-generated videohttps://www.businessinsider.com/coca-cola-ai-holiday-ad-glitches-highlight-ai-shortcomings-2025-11 Chinese court again rules AI-generated images are eligible for copyright protectionhttps://www.chinaiplawupdate.com/2025/03/chinese-court-again-rules-there-is-copyright-in-ai-generated-images/ Bullying is not innovationhttps://www.perplexity.ai/hub/blog/bullying-is-not-innovation Norway tests show Chinese-made electric buses can be halted remotely by manufacturerhttps://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/norway-tests-chinese-made-electric-bus-yutong-halted-remotely-5448366 4,000 Indian courts have done away with typing. An AI revolution is onhttps://theprint.in/ground-reports/4000-indian-courts-have-done-away-with-typing-an-ai-revolution-is-on/2770297/ Petition in Supreme Court says GenAI in judiciary may lead to fake case lawshttps://www.thehindu.com/news/national/petition-in-supreme-court-says-genai-in-judiciary-may-cause-hallucinations-lead-to-fake-case-laws/article70262821.ece

    50 min
  8. Synthetic musical artists, the Nifty Fifty and Magnificent 7, Big AI’s ‘zero f***s given’ era

    5 NOV • THE KEN PREMIUM ONLY

    Synthetic musical artists, the Nifty Fifty and Magnificent 7, Big AI’s ‘zero f***s given’ era

    Welcome back to Zero Shot, The Ken’s weekly podcast where Brady, Praveen, and Rohin riff off each other’s commentary about the big ideas and latest developments in artificial intelligence. This week, Praveen covers the accomplishments of Xania Monet, the first AI-powered artist to debut on an airplay chart. Xania is among at least six AI artists to be included on Billboard rankings, and she’s the creation of a real-life songwriter who used Suno (and human assistance) to create her songs. Find out what this means for the streaming business and creative expression. Brady explains how the dominance of the Magnificent 7—Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla—in the current stock market echoes the Nifty Fifty on the New York Stock Exchange in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Spoiler alert: it didn’t end well for those firms half a century ago. Whether you believe there’s currently an AI bubble, it’s still worth knowing what happened before. Finally, Rohin posits that Big AI is in its “zero f***s given” era. Investment in private AI companies is now being framed as “play or lose”. Opting out is stigmatised. The consequences could be severe. Plus: Send us your setup for a long/short strategy as a skeptical investor who is hedging against the AI bubble popping. We’ll feature the interesting, unexpected, counterintuitive ideas in the next episode. The content of this podcast is not investment advice. Always do your own research. Share your critiques, suggestions, and ideas, or just say hi by dropping a note at zeroshot@the-ken.com. If you’d like to sponsor Zero Shot, let’s talk. * Additional Reading & Listening How many AI artists have debuted on Billboard’s charts?https://www.billboard.com/lists/ai-artists-on-billboard-charts/ “How Was I Supposed to Know?” by Xania Monethttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opuDZYJuAz0  Ways of Seeinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ways_of_Seeing  What is “involution”, China's race-to-the-bottom competition trend?https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/what-is-involution-chinas-race-to-the-bottom-competition-trend-2025-09-14/  Sam Altman shuts down question about how OpenAI can commit to spending $1.4 trillion while earning billions: 'Enough'https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-defends-openai-trillion-spending-2025-11  How OpenAI uses complex and circular deals to fuels its multibillion-dollar risehttps://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/10/31/technology/openai-fundraising-deals.html

    43 min
See All (15)

Shows with Subscription Benefits

THE KEN PREMIUM

Listen to full episodes 1-4 weeks before others

US$2,99/month

View Subscription FAQs

About

Join Brady Ng, Praveen Gopal Krishnan, and Rohin Dharmakumar of The Ken as they discuss the big ideas in artificial intelligence. You’ll get the macro view, explore their experiments in practical applications, go deeper than the news coverage you’ve seen, and hear about the implications of the latest developments. Nothing is off the table.

Information

More From The Ken

You Might Also Like