State of the Markets and AI with Steven Wolfe Pereira

(0:00) Intro (1:30) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel (2:16) Start of interview. *Reference to E181 (July 2025) for Steven's personal/professional background. (3:14) IPOs and Market Trends. Including Klarna and Gemini. (5:29) The Stay Private vs. Go Public Dilemma. Valuations and market health (examples of Airbnb and Figma) (12:00) The Oracle post-earnings 36% price increase. *Reference to article by Tom Chavez: In Defense of Bubbles. (14:14) AI, Data Centers, and Market Dynamics (15:15) OpenAI's Future and Governance (20:12) Power Dynamics in Big Tech companies (Mag 7). (22:35) Tesla and Elon Musk Compensation Structure (Mega Grants) (24:53) Boardroom Accountability in Big Tech (28:31) Scale AI and L&A (Licensing & Acquihiring) as the new M&A (34:34) AI startup governance (e.g. SSI and Thinking Machine Labs) (36:41) The Role of Directors in Governance. "Theater in the boardroom?" (39:08) Startup Fraud (Elizabeth Holmes, SBF, etc) and the Startup Litigation Digest (40:05) Legal Accountability and Ethics  (46:39) The Future of AI and Market Valuations in the "Agentic Economy" (51:43) The Importance of Board Leadership Steven Wolfe Pereira founded Alpha to solve a critical problem: most boards are governing AI transformation without the frameworks, intelligence, or peer networks they need to make sound fiduciary decisions.  You can follow Evan on social media at: X: @evanepstein LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/  Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/ __ To support this podcast you can join as a subscriber of the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at https://evanepstein.substack.com/ __ Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License