Things Matt Levine Has Said on Podcasts

“I think that it is not a risk that is really cognizable in the risk factors of an IPO prospectus because if they kill everyone on earth, they won't get sued for securities fraud. So, who cares?” — Matt Levine, Money Stuff: The Podcast

The risk in question is an AI company's own product killing everyone. Levine and Mary Childs were talking about whether Anthropic's IPO prospectus has to say so. Levine thinks it does, because worrying about that is the company's whole identity and leaving it out would look odd, but he doubts it works as a risk factor in the legal sense.

Money Stuff: The Podcast · 2026-10-02 Permalink → Listen →

Money Stuff: The Podcast Around 37:25 into the episode

Matt Levine

You can't leave that out. I'm sorry in advance. SpaceX left it out, right? Because like although their models have a control. You know what I'm asking? Because at various times, like he was, you know, founder of OpenAI. Like he's at various times been very worried about the existential risk of AI. At other times, been pretty blasé about it. Don't really know what's going on there.

Mary Childs

Well, it's before the playa and after, obviously. I'm just kidding.

Matt Levine

Are you? But SpaceX did not say in its prospectus, we might kill everyone on Earth, even though it is in theory an AI lab, as well as a space rocket lab. And I think people were not that. Surprised by that because, like, the culture of SpaceX is not really built around worrying about AI killing everyone. Whereas Anthropic is their whole thing. And so, if they left it out of the prospectus, it would be weird. So, they have to say it. But I think that it is not a risk that is really cognizable in the risk factors of an IPO prospectus because if they kill everyone on earth, they won't get sued for securities fraud. So, who cares?

Mary Childs

But I liked your footnote that was maybe other governments will clamp down if they think that we really are about to destroy everyone. And that is a business risk.

Matt Levine

Yeah, I am kind of kidding, right? Like, the point is that if you really think that AI could kill everyone on earth, like one possibility is there'll be like a step change like next week and we'll all be dead and then oops, right? But like, the other possibility is like there's a lot of bad things that are below the level of kill everyone on earth that like AI might do on its way to killing everyone on earth. And that includes things like being banned for almost killing everyone on earth or killing a lot of people or lots

Mary Childs

of hits to profit, I'm hearing. Yeah. Hacking

Speaker names from our own diarization · position estimated from where the line sits in the episode

“When you do a military coup, you're thinking, what are my exit options if this goes wrong? … But when you do a corporate coup, your exit options if they go wrong is a severance agreement. And so you better get yourself a severance agreement.” — Matt Levine, Money Stuff: The Podcast

Levine and Mary Childs were discussing a company whose leader was out of reach for about 33 hours, during which other executives took charge. Levine notes that in that window the finance chief, acting as interim CEO, and the chief legal officer signed each other's severance agreements.

Money Stuff: The Podcast · 2026-10-02 Permalink → Listen →

Money Stuff: The Podcast Around 28:07 into the episode

Matt Levine

one other thing I want to say about automatic before we go on, unless you want to reminisce more about your favorite years at Burning Man.

Mary Childs

With my 0% attendance, yeah.

Matt Levine

So he was gone for 33 hours and 20 minutes. What did the company do in those 33 hours and 20 minutes? Well, one thing they did was that the chief financial officer, who is the interim CEO, and the chief legal officer, who presumably, you know, had to sign off and all that stuff, signed each other's severance agreements. Which is just like, when you do a coup, you know, you do a military coup, like you're thinking, like, what are my exit options if this goes wrong? And they're off and grim. But when you do a corporate coup, your exit options if they go wrong is a severance agreement. And so you better get yourself a severance agreement. I mean, 33 hours and you're in charge. You sign that agreement. I don't know if that's going to happen. They got right to it.

Mary Childs

The most important part.

Matt Levine

Right. Like, it's possible that he comes back. He's in a good mood from Burning Man. He's like, all right, have your severance. Goodbye. Better to have you leave without a dispute. But it's possible that not. I don't know what that

Mary Childs

come down to. I think you come back from the playa less oriented towards confrontation and more towards love. That

Speaker names from our own diarization · position estimated from where the line sits in the episode

“…the proper cynical interpretation of like law firm outside investigations is that they are designed to throw someone under the bus who is probably not the person writing the check to the law firm, right?” — Matt Levine, Money Stuff: The Podcast

Max Abelson had said he assumed companies hire outside law firms to get a clean bill of health in public, and was surprised the Wachtell report made the Clippers scandal look bigger rather than smaller. Levine gives the cynical reading: the deep purpose is often to hand prosecutors a named individual so the company gets credit for cooperating. He then says he does not think that is what happened here, since the NBA faces no real Justice Department threat.

Money Stuff: The Podcast · 2026-09-11 Permalink → Listen →

Money Stuff: The Podcast Around 08:41 into the episode

Matt Levine

like, you get the sense that Aspiration is like kind of a big company and some people involved in it were not simply there to do fraud, but like the whole thing was kind of doing a lot of fraud. So

Max Abelson

shout out to Pablo and his staff. That's good reporting. But also, you know what? Credit goes to Wachtel, your former bosses. I feel like, am I, Matt? In my mind's eye, this is probably very, very wrong. You'll be disappointed with me for having thought this, but in my mind's eye, I thought that when you go to like an external law firm to do an independent review, I was like, a part of me like imagine that was a way of like trying to get something like a clean bill of health in public after the scare of a scandal. And then the Wachtel report comes out. It's like, is it worse? It made this look like a bigger scandal, not a smaller scandal. I was kind of amazed. I was sort of impressed, but maybe that's not fair to law firms in their

Matt Levine

cynical, like the proper cynical interpretation of like law firm outside investigations is that they are designed to throw someone under the bus who is probably not the person writing the check to the law firm, right? So like in many internal investigations, like the upshot is this one bad apple did some real bad stuff. Like a classic law firm internal investigation is conducted in the shadow of some sort of regulatory investigation or like Justice Department investigation. And often the purpose, the deep purpose of the law firm investigation is to get the Justice Department not to charge the company with something bad. And often the way to do that is to serve up some sacrificial victims to the Justice Department and be like, this is the guy who did the crime and here's all the evidence against them. So charge him. And then like the company gets credit for cooperating. And so, you know, you're right that the point of a law firm investigation is to make, is often to make the company look good. But often the way to do that is to make some selected person look as bad as possible. That's not what's going on here because like, first of all, there's probably no like, you know, this is just like a scandal. It's not like the Justice Department is going to shut down the NBA. And secondly, like, it's not clear what the NBA's incentives are here. Like, maybe it would be better for the NBA to be like, nope, nothing wrong here. But they do seem to have given Wachtel a free reign. And Wachtel seems to have had a lot of. Fun. And like, you know, they found a lot of bad stuff. Allegedly. I mean, like, you know, the Clippers still say this was a biased investigation and everything was fine. But it's like, it's really like they find these consulting fees and then they go interview the people at the companies who say, well, we don't do any consulting. And we thought it was pretty weird to get these consulting fees and like, you know, paid them all up front. And so there's a lot of bad stuff.

Max Abelson

I will say I was watching live when Kawhi Leonard hit. I mean, this was for a different basketball. This is for the Raptors. The coolest shot of them I've ever seen.

Matt Levine

Yeah. The Clippers got him right after that, right?

Max Abelson

I think right after that. I think he left the Raptors. I mean, that was in the Eastern Conference. Semi-finals.

Speaker names from our own diarization · position estimated from where the line sits in the episode

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