At least seven EU states, including #Hungary, #Slovakia, and #Luxembourg, reportedly back Russian billionaire Mikhail #Fridman’s bid to overturn sanctions, with others like #Italy and #Greece viewing it favorably, though removal efforts failed in March.
#Fridman
#russian #oligarch Mikhail #Fridman asks #Spain for support in removing himself from the #EU #blacklist in exchange for multi-million-dollar #investments
https://www.elmundo.es/economia/empresas/2025/09/04/68b84cb421efa029498b4573.html
“ #Fridman asked #Trump about UFOs and psychedelics, for instance, but did not bring up the single most important issue that the president has decision-making power over: the #climatecrisis” www.currentaffairs.org/news/rise-of... #podcasts #podcasters
Rise of the Idiot Interviewer
In February, #Marc #Andreessen described the #Chatham #House group chats to the podcaster #Lex #Fridman as “the equivalent of [Soviet era] #samizdat”
“The combination of encryption and disappearing messages really unleashed it,” he said. The chats, he wrote recently, helped produce our national “vibe shift.”
They have rarely been discussed in public, though you can catch the occasional mention in, for instance, a podcast debate between #Mark #Cuban and the Republican entrepreneur #Vivek #Ramaswamy, which started in a chat.
But they are made visible through a group consensus on social media.
Their effects have ranged from the mainstreaming of the monarchist pundit #Curtis #Yarvin to a particularly focused and developed dislike of the former Washington Post writer #Taylor #Lorenz.
They succeeded at avoiding leaks (until, to a modest extent, this article) in part because of Signal’s and WhatsApp’s #disappearing #message features,
and in part because the groups had formed out of a mix of fear and disdain for journalists they believed were “out to get us,” as one member put it.
“People during 2020 felt that there was a monoculture on social media, and if they didn’t agree with something, group chats became a safe space to debate that, share that, build consensus, feel that you’re not alone,”
said #Erik #Torenberg, an entrepreneur who was the first employee of the tech community hub Product Hunt.
As #Krishnan was setting up a set of tech group WhatsApp chats at a16z, #Torenberg independently founded a group of tech chats on WhatsApp and some more political Signal chats.
“They’re having all the private conversations because they weren’t allowed to have the public conversations,” Andreessen told Torenberg on a recent podcast,
after claiming in the name of secrecy that he’d never heard of such groups.
“If it wasn’t for the censorship all of these conversations would have happened in public, which would have been much better.”
Their creations took off:
“It might not seem like it, because of all the sh*t that people still post on X, but the internet has fragmented,”
the Substack author #Noah #Smith wrote after my inquiries for this story spilled into public Saturday.
“Group chats are now where everything important and interesting happens.”
https://www.semafor.com/article/04/27/2025/the-group-chats-that-changed-america
Blavatnik’s ties to Russia go back decades. After the collapse of the USSR, he returned to Russia at the invitation of now-billionaire Viktor #Vekselberg. They cofounded Access-Renova, which was then expanded with the help of another billionaire close to Putin, Mikhail #Fridman.
The European Union agreed on Friday to renew sanctions on Russian individuals and entities but kept Russian tycoon Mikhail Fridman on the list despite pressure from Hungary, EU diplomats said.
Hungary has threatened to block the EU’s renewal of sanctions imposed on about 2,000 Russians unless oligarch Mikhail Fridman is removed from the list.
https://www.ft.com/content/8d9a8b40-79fe-4604-bacc-70311620780c
Всі хто знає, хто такий Лекс #Fridman, будь ласка, встаньте, або підніміть руку. Добре, сідайте, вам це було робити не обов'язково. А тепер, встаньте, або підніміть руку ті, хто знав цього Лекса Фрідмана до його інтерв'ю #Zelensky #podcast
Вам не потрібно ні вставати, ні піднімати. Ми в курсі, що ви знаєте все. Краще б ви втекли разом зі своїм партійним босом. От бачите, таких нема. Тепер, після цього інтерв'ю питання, кому воно (це інтерв'ю) допомогло?
i was forced to watch a part of what lex #fridman calls his interview with president #zelensky… i was disghusted, appalled and not a little frightened.
disghusted by the abyssmal level of stupidity of mr. fridman bordering with idiocy.
appalled at the complete misunderstanding of every aspect of the russian imperialist history mr. fridman demonstrated.
frightened by the thought that this could pass for journalism in usa or at least some sort of interesting blogging of international scale.
If there is one language I will definitely not learn, it's russian.
Because then, putin loves you and wants to protect you,
i.e. he drops bombs on you, deports your children, rapes everybody,
tortures, expropriates and deports you to siberia, etc.
I prefer to learn some ukrainian,
hoping to one day be able to read ukrainian news.
https://www.pravda.com.ua/
https://www.ukrainiancourse.com/free-ukrainian-courses/
https://www.bing.com/translator/?from=uk&to=en&text=
https://ukr.radio/
That one question tells you everything about the risibley partisan stance of Fridman you could need to know.
No one should take him seriously.
"Volodymyr Zelenskyy: Ukraine, War, Peace, Putin, Trump, NATO, and Freedom, Lex Fridman Podcast number 456"
I've just heard the introduction, but am really fond of that the voice of the #Zelenskyy translator sounds like the president himself.
Normally I only post stuff I fully read or listened to.
But for this, I make an exception (have to sleep first:
it will be hard to read subtitles for so long ..):
Upfront disclaimer: I long ago stopped to listen to Fridman
because I consider him to be dangerously naive.
Interview of Volodymyr #Zelenskyy with American podcaster Lex #Fridman
President Volodymyr #Zelensky previously offered U.S. President-elect Donald #Trump for Ukraine to buy American weapons at the expense of $300 billion in frozen Russian assets, Zelensky revealed in an interview with American podcaster Lex #Fridman.
https://kyivindependent.com/zelensky-offers-to-buy-weapons-from-the-us-with-frozen-russian-assets/
Meanwhile, popular podcasters such as #LexFridman and #AndrewHuberman still platforming that 🤬 Jordan Peterson.
But #Huberman also commented ”learned a lot“ when #Fridman let that insufferable fascist Balaji Srinivasan ramble about his totalitarian fascist ideology for 8(!) hours. (Look up ”The Network State“.)
https://ohai.social/@MeanwhileinCanada/113771492886217468
AGI und KI-Sicherheit: Lex Fridman im Interview mit Dario Amodei von Anthropic
🔹 Skalierungshypothese: Amodei erwartet, dass KI-Modelle bis 2026 auf PhD-Niveau operieren.
🔹 Sicherheitsstrategie: Anthropic fokussiert sich auf Sicherheitsstandards für KI – etwa in Cyber- und Biotech.
🔹 Zukunft der AGI: Forschung in Biologie & Medizin könnte durch AGI revolutioniert werden.
#ki #artificialintelligence #kuenstlicheintelligenz #AGI #technologie #fridman
https://kinews24.de/en/lex-fridman-interview-highlights-mit-dario-amodei/
I saw this segment on YouTube, in which #Fridman interviewed #Kernighan about his #programming setup. For an instant, I was surprised to learn that Fridman hadn't heard of #UNIX \(\texttt{ed}\), but then I realised....
In my view, a luminary like Kernighan, from a certain era, should be interviewed by someone who wouldn't be stunned when hearing once-common names like \(\texttt{ed}\) or \(\texttt{ex}\) or \(\texttt{dc}\) or \(\texttt{adb}\), but would smoothly inject a brief historical description thereof, and glide on with the main point of the interview. But that 1970s/1980s #geek generation avoids the YouTube selfie camera like the plague.
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