AI Summary
5 min readHow Substack Creators Are Covering This Strange Markets Era
When James Van Geelen wrote a post about a theoretical scenario where AI eliminates everyone's jobs, he got two credible death threats. That's the temperature of the current moment in markets and technology — and it's the environment that a new generation of independent financial and tech writers is trying to navigate. On a recent live episode of Odd Lots, three Substack creators — Van Geelen of Citrini Research, Jasmine Sun (who writes about AI and Silicon Valley culture), and Sam Ro (author of the newsletter The TKR) — sat down to discuss how they cover an era that feels increasingly surreal, where the lines between reporting, prediction, and survival are blurring.
The Challenge of Explaining AI to Everyone Else
Sun described a fundamental disconnect in how AI is discussed. The vast majority of AI media coming out of Silicon Valley, she said, is "by AI people for other AI people." Industry leaders say things that sound insane to normal people "without for a second thinking that any normal person might hear them say it." They wonder why the public doesn't love AI, while simultaneously telling everyone they're going to take all the jobs and potentially kill everybody.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (04:21) **Introducing the Panel** - Tracy and Joe set up the conversation with three Substack writers covering AI, markets, and tech culture: James Van Geelen (Citrini Research), Jasmine Sun (AI/Silicon Valley culture), and Sam Ro (TKR newsletter).
- 2 (05:34) **Jasmine on the AI Communication Gap** - She argues that most AI media is "by AI people for other AI people," ignoring broader public concerns about jobs, parenting, and politics.
- 3 (06:49) **Sam Ro on Market Anxiety** - Sam explains his newsletter's premise—"stocks usually go up"—but admits he's always nervous, especially at market peaks.
- 4 (08:24) **Jasmine on AI Doom and Alignment** - She addresses the "p(doom)" debate, arguing that safety and utility are correlated: a misaligned AI agent is both dangerous and economically useless.
- 5 (09:57) **Are AI CEOs Genuinely Worried?** - The panel debates whether tech leaders’ concerns about job loss are real or just hype.
- 6 (13:52) **Sam Ro on AI Replicating His Voice** - Sam describes an app that trained on his newsletter to generate "Sam Ro" tweets, forcing him to rethink his value proposition beyond mere voice.
- 7 (18:42) **James on the Edge in Media** - James argues investment research as we know it will vanish; the edge lies in being "right all the time" or doing things AI can't—like sending a person to the Strait of Hormuz.
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
We closed out our New York live show on May 28 with a panel that featured three of our favorite Substackers: James van Geelen of Citrini Research, Sam Ro, founder of The TKer, and journalist Jasmine Sun. They've all been Odd Lots guests before, and we wanted to get them together to discuss how journalists and analysts are supposed to cover this incredibly strange and highly pressurized moment in markets. Not only has AI basically infected every corner of the world, the media included, but there's just so much news that it's sometimes hard to figure out what the focus should be. But James, Sam, and Jasmine have all found their own niches, and cover AI in a really unique way. This panel discussion debates how the media has covered fears over the AI bubble and the possibility of mass job loss, if people in Silicon Valley are scared about the future of society, if AI can really mimic a writer's voice and personality, and (if they can) how writers can hedge against that future.
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