TikTok惊人估值达140亿美元，谷歌反垄断案，Mira Murati百亿美元之谜 | 2025年9月26日

欢迎各位收看TITV资讯。我是阿卡什·帕什里查。今天是9月26日星期五，我们为您准备了内容丰富的节目，全部来自本台新闻编辑部。我们将重点介绍OpenAI前首席技术官米拉·莫拉迪的精彩人物特写，我已迫不及待想与我们的AI记者斯蒂芬妮·帕拉佐罗展开讨论。同时还将连线广告条线记者，他本周一直在弗吉尼亚州法院现场报道谷歌广告技术诉讼案。

Welcome everyone to the Informations TITV. My name is Akash Pashricha. It is Friday, September 26, and we have got a packed show for you today exclusively with our own newsroom. We have got a great profile of Mira Moradi, the former CTO of OpenAI that I cannot wait to talk about with our AI reporter, Stephanie Palazzolo. We're also gonna bring on our advertising reporter who has been covering the Google AdTech trial this week in Virginia at the courthouse.

稍后我们将与电动汽车专栏记者史蒂夫·莱文讨论他本周的重要报道。但我想先从TikTok的重大新闻开始——昨天官方宣布了TikTok美国业务的交易协议。白宫签署行政命令批准这笔交易，TikTok美国业务将以140亿美元的价格出售。无论从哪个角度看，这个数字都不算高，但更耐人寻味的是交易参与方。现在有请我们的风险投资副主编凯蒂·鲁夫，为我们分享她掌握的最新情况。

We're gonna be talking later on to our electric vehicles correspondent, Steve Levine, about a big story that he had this week. But I wanna start with the big news out of TikTok. There was officially a deal for TikTok US in place announced yesterday. The White House signed an executive order approving a deal that will see TikTok's US business sold off for $14,000,000,000. Any way you look at it, that is not a particularly high number, but just as interesting as who is getting involved in the deal, I want to bring on our Deputy Bureau Chief of Venture Capital, Katie Roof, to tell us more about what she's learned.

凯蒂，欢迎回到节目。很高兴你能来。太好了。那么我们来谈谈这个140亿美元的金额，这个数字让你感到意外吗？

Katie, welcome back to the show. It's great to have you. Great to be here. So let's talk about the $14,000,000,000 figure. Were you surprised by that?

说实话，我震惊极了。

I mean, I was shocked.

完全同意。这个小数点可能都点错位置了。要知道，人们曾认为其估值高达4000亿美元。相比之下14亿简直天差地别。不过有人指出，由于中国曾威胁要关闭TikTok，我们一度认为它可能变得一文不值。

Absolutely. It seemed like the decimal point was maybe in the wrong place. You know, people thought this was valued at like 400,000,000,000 at one point. And, you know, so 14 doesn't look similar to that. But, you know, someone pointed out there was one point then we thought it could go to zero because China threatened to shut it down.

最终出于国家安全考虑，中国被迫以极低的折扣价出售。

And so ultimately, because of the national security concerns, it put China in a position where they had to sell at a very steep discount.

没错。我们的联合执行主编马丁·皮尔斯昨晚在简报专栏中讨论了估值问题。根据我们的报道，字节跳动2024年国际收入达390亿美元。如果假设其中大部分来自TikTok美国业务，按300亿美元收入计算，这个售价连一倍营收都不到，简直微不足道。

Right. And, you know, Martin Pierce, our co executive editor, he wrote a column last night in the briefing talking about the valuation. You know, we've reported at the information that ByteDance's international revenue in the year 2024 was $39,000,000,000 And you know, if you take the international revenue and you kind of assume that, okay, most of that comes probably from TikTok in The US, call it $30,000,000,000 in revenue. Mean, is not even one times revenue. I mean, is tiny.

但今早我们从彭博社获悉，可能已达成一项利润分享协议。所以情况可能比我们想象的更复杂。

But then we got news this morning from Bloomberg that there could be a profit sharing agreement in place. And so maybe this is more complicated than we thought.

是的，很多细节似乎仍在商定中，比如各方持股比例、董事会席位分配等。听起来中国和中国股东仍将保留部分业务所有权，但不占多数股权，而甲骨文或美国实体将控制安全问题。不过说实话，目前仍存在许多变数。我接触过相关人士，他们似乎也不清楚具体情况，因为近五年来相关消息一直在变化。我从2020年就开始关注此事，局势始终充满变数和猜测，但现在看来终于要尘埃落定了。

Yeah, it seems like a lot of the details are still being hashed out and, you know, who's owning what percentage and getting what board see. It does sound like China will still China and Chinese shareholders will still own part of the business, but they will not have a majority stake and that Oracle or US entity will be controlling the security issues. So but, yeah, we you know, there's still a lot. You know, I've talked to people involved who don't even seem to know what what's happening because the news keeps changing on this and has been changing for five years. I've been looking into this situation since 2020, and it's always, you know, been changing and speculative, but now it seems like things are finally happening.

没错。我想回到你之前提到的观点——0美元曾是被考虑的报价之一。为什么字节跳动无法争取更高报价？你认为哪方在此事上占据优势？

Right. I want to go back to what you were talking about earlier, which is that at one point, you know, $0 was a possible price tag in the mix. Why couldn't ByteDance get a higher price in this? Who do you think had the leverage here?

我认为美国政府是故意将此事安排在关税谈判期间进行的。或许一方愿意在某议题上折价协商，以换取另一议题的有利条件。这很可能增强了美国政府的谈判筹码。

Well, I think that the US government deliberately timed this during negotiations with tariffs. And so, you know, maybe one party is willing to negotiate at a discount for on one issue, if they can get a better deal on the other issue. And so that just probably gave the US government more leverage.

换言之，这是更大战略的一部分——拖延战术。等待最佳时机再出手，似乎是其中的关键考量。我想谈谈最新加入持股方名单的MGX。请简单介绍MGX，他们入股新实体的举动是否令你意外？

In other words, there's a broader plan, the delay, delay, delay. I mean, it's delay until the time is right, and then strike seems to be seems to be part of the calculus here. You know, I I I wanna talk about MGX, which was the latest name added into the mix in terms of who could own the entity. Tell us a little bit about MGX. And also, did it surprise you that they were taking a stake here in the new entity?

说意外是因为MGX属于国际机构。理论上若奉行'美国优先'原则，主要股东不应来自海外。但反过来说也不意外，毕竟MGX近期广泛参与各类投资，资金实力雄厚。这家阿联酋机构与西方关系升温，与美国也保持着良好关系。

Well, yeah, it's surprising in the sense that they are an international party. And so if this is about, you know, America first in theory, you know, you're not you wouldn't expect the major shareholders to be international. But then on the other hand, it's not surprising in the sense that MGX is getting very involved in a lot of things. They they can write big checks. You know, they're in The UAE, which has really warmed up to the West and has you know, is is on good terms with The United States.

我想这或许是他们能参与其中的原因。

So I think maybe that's why they were allowed in the mix.

字节跳动的现有股东会面临什么情况？

What happens to the existing shareholders in ByteDance?

这正是关键问题所在。你知道这段历程就像坐过山车一样。我从Musically时期就开始关注字节跳动，当时它还是个年轻人用来唱歌跳舞的热门应用，后来演变成了TikTok。许多股东从那时就参与其中，Musically被字节跳动收购后发展成现在的规模。

That's the big question. I you know, what a roller coaster it's been. I've been covering ByteDance since it was musically. It was you know, it used to be this popular app for for young people who wanted to sing and dance, and then it turned into TikTok. And a lot of the shareholders have been in it that long where, you know, Musically sold to by dance, and it turned into what it is now.

最初他们的投资价值不断攀升，后来一度以为会倒闭。现在估值可能达到140亿美元，他们或许还有权购买更多股份。虽然与某个时期的预期不同，但TikTok的故事远未结束。

And so, you know, first, their investment went up and up and up, and then it was, you know, they thought it would shut down. Now maybe it's worth $14,000,000,000 and they might have the option to buy more shares. So certainly not where they thought it was at one point, but the story with TikTok's not over.

没错。关于购买新股权的选择权，我们目前了解多少？

Right. Right. And an option to buy new shares. What do we know about that?

据消息报道，现有股东将获得增持股份的选择权。但具体哪些股东会接受要约、相关条件如何，目前尚不明确。不过看起来确实存在增持机会。

Yeah. So the information is reported that existing shareholders should be given an option to buy more shares. We have yet to see who's planning to, you know, what who's going to take up that offer and what the conditions are. But it sounds like there will be an opportunity to buy more.

接下来的问题还包括他们将以何种估值购买股份，这在此事中是个耐人寻味的问题。在结束前我想请教，目前事态仍处于发展阶段——昨晚我们看到行政命令出台，形势似乎仍在变化中。

And then the question would be also what valuation they would they would buy the shares at, I guess, which is kind of an interesting question here. Before we let you go, I do want to ask you, you know, about sort of the story being in the developing phase right now. We saw the executive order last night. Okay? It seems like things keep changing.

这是最终方案吗？还是说仍有变数？目前还存在哪些未解决的问题？

Is this the deal or what could you see still what's still in flux? What what questions are there still?

我认为部分股权信息已被披露，但部分所有权股份尚未公开。我想知道谁将担任董事会主席，想了解甲骨文公司将如何控制安全细节。如果中国仍是主要股东，他们是否仍会拥有很大影响力？还有很多问题尚未得到解答。

I think that some of the stakes have been reported, but some of the ownership stakes haven't. You know, I'd like to know who's gonna be the chairman of the board. I'd like to know the details on how Oracle will be controlling the security. If if China's still a large shareholder, you know, are they going to have a lot of influence still? You know, there's a lot of questions that haven't been answered.

好的。太棒了。凯蒂，非常感谢你来做客并分享这些分析。我相信你今天还会进行更多采访，或许下周我们可以再请你来分享新发现。这位是《The Information》的副主编凯蒂·鲁夫。

Right. Great. Well, Katie, thank you so much for coming on and sharing that with us, that analysis. I'm sure that you're going to be making some more calls today, and so maybe we'll bring you back on next week to hear about what you learned. That is Katie Roof, our Deputy Bureau Chief at The Information.

本周谷歌再次出庭，就其部分广告技术业务被判定垄断的问题寻求解决方案。我要请出我们不知疲倦的广告行业记者凯瑟琳·佩洛夫，她在法院现场进行了马拉松式的庭审报道，将为我们解析所有见闻及事态可能的发展方向。凯瑟琳，欢迎回到节目，很高兴你能来。

Okay. Well, this week, Google is in court once again to decide how it will resolve the issue of part of its ad tech business being deemed a monopoly. I want to bring on our tireless advertising reporter, Katherine Perloff, who has been on a marathon reporting trip covering the trial on-site at the courthouse to break down everything that she has learned and where she's expecting to take the where she's expecting things to go from here. Catherine, welcome back to the show. It's great to have you.

你好。这周真是累坏了吧？天啊，你整个星期都在法庭上。

Hello. So it's been a tiring week. Gosh, you've been in court all week.

是啊。这个法庭不允许带手机，所以全程手写记录。感觉像是...

Yeah. And you can't have your phone in this court, so you're writing by hand. You're like, that's been kind of

挺不错的对吧？至少能暂时脱离数字世界，专心面对眼前广告技术法的细枝末节。

nice, right? I mean, you know, you get to disconnect a little bit with all the nitty gritty of ad tech law in front of you.

确实如此，而且无论好坏，至少不用接收工作通知了。是的。

That's true, and not get notifications from work for better or worse. Yeah.

好的，让我们深入探讨一下，因为这有点复杂。我想尽量保持讨论的高度概括性。简单回顾一下，谷歌的广告技术业务是帮助出版商、网站在线销售广告的一部分。法官裁定这部分业务存在垄断，现在我们再次上庭，试图确定对谷歌的适当惩罚措施。双方正在就何为公平展开辩论。

Okay, let's get into it, because it's kind of a complicated one. I want to sort of try to keep this as high level as possible. Just very quickly, remind us, so Google's ad tech business is a part of the ad tech business that helps publishers, websites sell their advertisements online. Just a quick recap, the judge ruled that that part of the business had a monopoly, and now we are in court again to try to figure out what the correct punishment should be for Google. And so these are arguments going back and forth about what is fair.

谈谈我们本周从法庭辩论中了解到的内容。

Talk to us about, you know, what we learned this week from all the arguments in court.

是的。政府正在推动分拆。他们要求谷歌出售被法官认定为垄断的那部分业务，具体是指谷歌为出版商提供的工具——即用于网站广告销售的卖方工具，而非买方广告技术工具。政府方面表示...

Yeah. Well, the government is pushing for a breakup. They want Google to have to sell the part of the business the judge deemed a monopoly, which specifically are Google's tools for publishers. So for the sell side to sell ads on their sites and not the buy side ad tech tools. And the government is or sorry.

而谷歌则辩称这没有必要，他们提出了一系列行为补救措施，可以消除法官对其将两项业务捆绑、导致用户难以单独使用某一产品的担忧。

And that Google is arguing that that will not be necessary and that they have a set of behavioral remedies that will sort of remove some of the concerns the judge had about the fact that they're linking these two businesses together and making it hard to use one of their products without using another one of their products.

而且他们

And they

认为这已足够。另外，我们刚在另一起反垄断案（非广告技术领域）中看到法官判定分拆属于过度干预。我想他们正试图借此争取一些支持点

say that's sufficient. And, you know, also, you know, we just had a ruling in another ad tech- or sorry, not ad tech, antitrust case against people where a judge decided that a breakup was overreach. I think they're trying to get some points

。提醒大家注意背景：首案裁决结果是谷歌无需出售Chrome浏览器。许多人原以为这次广告技术业务被出售的可能性更大。随着本周进展，情况是否正朝这个方向发展？

on that as well. And so just to put, you know, remind people, putting this into perspective, you know, the decision out of the first case, I guess, they had the remedies trial was that Google should not have to sell Chrome, essentially. I think going into this one, a lot of people thought, Hey, a sale of the ad tech business could be more likely. Yeah. As the week has progressed on, has it felt like that is going to be the case?

我是说，法官对于他们如何看待这件事有什么说法吗？你知道，我——是的，我

I mean, what has the judge said about, you know, how they're thinking about this? You know, I- yeah, I

确实认为这更有可能，尤其是因为实际上本月早些时候在欧洲，关于广告技术业务也有类似的裁决，他们尚未完全表态打算怎么做，但表示倾向于拆分。

do think it's definitely more likely it felt like, especially because actually earlier this month in Europe, there was a similar decision about the ad tech business, and they haven't fully said what they want to do, but they said they would like to break it up.

所以，你

So, you

知道，这方面压力很大。但法官的想法我们并不完全清楚。不过最终是由她单独裁决，没有陪审团。因此她在法庭上的发言总是很有参考价值。

know, there's a lot of pressure on this. But the judge, you know, we don't know exactly what she's thinking. But yeah, it's just her making the decision. There's no jury. So what she says in court, you know, is always pretty valuable.

她提到几个耐人寻味的观点。首先，她指出如果政府提议的补救措施虽然能促进竞争，但相关整体市场（即网站广告）却萎缩了呢？这种情况确实已有苗头——比如人们在网页广告上的投入正在减少，转向流媒体或社交平台及应用。我认为——

A couple interesting things she said. First, she sort of pointed out that, you know, what if the remedies that the government is suggesting increase competition, but the overall market that this is concerned with, which is ads on websites declines? And that, you know, that's kind of been happening a little bit. Like, you know, the market for people are spending less money on advertising on the web versus on streaming or versus in social platforms and app. And I think, you know- And so this

这个观点——某种程度上与上个案件类似，即人工智能改变了游戏规则，广告销售市场正在收缩。那么为何还要从根本上限制这个市场呢？

is the idea- this is sort of a similar idea, I guess, that came up in the last case, which is that AI has changed the game a bit and that the market for selling ads is shrinking. And so why would you try to stifle that market essentially?

没错。市场力量会自我调节，这正是谷歌试图论证的观点。法官的质疑在于：竞争可能加剧，但市场可能萎缩。拆分或许会雪上加霜——如果谷歌减少对该市场的投入，他们可能转向其他渠道，这也是谷歌的论点。

Yeah, exactly. You know, the market forces are going to regulate itself. And so that's sort of an argument Google's been trying to make. And the judge's question, which is like, you know, competition could increase, but the market could go down. And, you know, maybe a breakup makes this worse because if Google's not investing in this market as much, maybe they're gonna prefer other channels, which is an argument Google is making.

我们确实不知道会发生什么。她似乎询问了这件事，这触动了她。她在庭审中还提到，如果不出售这些业务或涉事产品之一，而是直接关闭它呢？然后出版商可以使用目前流行的开源解决方案。我不会深入讨论细节，因为这是个非常复杂的案件，但有趣的是，这表明法官似乎在质疑出售的可行性，并非常谨慎地考虑这是否是正确选择，甚至提出了我们尚未想到的创造性解决方案。

We don't know really what will happen. She she seemed to ask about it, so that kind of struck a chord with her. Another thing she said during the trial was like, she asked if, you know, what if instead of selling these businesses, one of one of the products in question, what if we just shut it down? And instead, you know, publishers could use sort of an open source solution that is popular right now. I'm not gonna get into all the weeds there because it's a very complicated case, but just kinda interesting that shows that the the judge seems to be questioning the feasibility and being very careful about whether a sale is really the right option, And even coming up on the stand with creative solutions that we haven't really thought of yet.

嗯，我觉得这很有意思，因为我们在上一个与搜索相关的案件中看到类似情况，让人们惊讶的是，他们实际上承认，自从案件开始以来，情况已经有所变化。我想和你讨论一下这部分业务实际出售的可行性。你昨晚为我们写了一份简报，谈到谷歌之前尝试过这样做。我们从中了解到了什么？

Well, and I think that's interesting because that is sort of what we saw a little bit in the last case with the search related case that surprised people was that they were actually sort of acknowledging that, hey, the game has changed a little bit since this case first began. I want to talk to you about sort of the feasibility of actually selling this part of the business at all. You know, you wrote a brief last night for us talking about some of the history that Google had actually tried doing this before. What did we learn about that?

是的，技术可行性是这个案件中的一个重大问题，因为谷歌想辩称他们的广告技术与其它技术系统或基础设施过于紧密相连，无法剥离。但在法庭上，谷歌广告副总裁作证说，他们之前曾在2023年、2024年以及更早的2021年考虑过如何剥离这部分业务。关键区别在于，他们最近考虑出售时和政府提议的不同在于，谷歌会出售合同和业务部分，但不包括底层技术。他们会为买家提供重建指南，但不会出售底层源代码。

Yeah, the technical feasibility is a really big issue in this case because I think Google wants to argue that, you know, their ad tech is too connected to their other, you know, tech systems or other infrastructures that would be impossible to spin out. But on the stand, a Google VP of ads testified, you know, that they had previously, both in 2023 and 2024 and earlier around 2021, had looked at, how they might spin this out. The key difference, at least in their most recent effort to think about a sale and what the government is proposing is that Google, would would have sold the contracts and the business part, but not the underlying technology. Got it. They would give a sort of, guide for whoever the buyer would be to recreate it, but they wouldn't sell the underlying source code.

而政府希望这种情况发生，他们还可能希望谷歌开源部分技术，这

And the government wants that to happen, and they also want maybe Google to open source part of their technology, which

是的。这也挺有趣的，因为我们在TikTok的故事中看到了类似情况，即底层技术才是真正的价值所在，而不仅仅是应用的前端。所以听起来，谷歌也一直在考虑这一点。

yeah. This is kind of interesting too because we're sort of seeing some version of that play out with the TikTok story, which is that, hey. You know, it's the underlying technology, which is really the value here. It's not just the front end of the app. And so it sounds like, you know, that has always been a consideration for Google as well.

最后快速问一下，下周你还会去法院吗？

Very quickly, before we let you go, you're going to be at the courthouse next week as well?

实际上，谢天谢地，不会去了。

Actually, mercifully, no.

对。嗯，没错。

Right. Well, right.

今天只是去一趟。就今天。但审判下周才开始。

Going Just to today. Just today. But the trial is going on next week.

那么你在关注什么？下周这些头条新闻出来时，我们应该注意哪些方面？

So what what what are you watching for? What should we be, you know, aware of as we see these headlines come out next week?

是的。我认为，我们应该保持关注。我今天会到场，然后，你知道，这类情况下最有趣的是那些被揭露的、我们之前不了解的商业内幕，因为证据会在法庭上呈现。有时候，比如内部邮件会被公开。我是说，我们已让谷歌承认——尽管早有报道——他们曾考虑出售这个他们现在拼命在法庭上抗拒出售的业务。

Yes. I think, you know, we should be paying attention. I'll be there today and then, you know, that what I think the most interesting thing that comes up in these, situations is sort of like what is revealed about, like, the business that we didn't know any before because that evidence comes up in court. Sometimes, like, internal emails come up. I mean, you know, we got Google to confirm, which there have been reports of, that they had considered selling this business, that they're fighting so hard in court not to sell.

实际上我们还了解到他们考虑过其他创新方案，比如将部分业务转入谷歌云，然后以软件即服务产品的形式出售，这与目前的收费模式略有不同。所以我觉得了解这些关于谷歌业务的新信息非常有趣。

And they actually we actually learned they considered some other creative alternatives, like moving part of the business into Google Cloud and have selling it kind of in the software as a service product, which is a little bit different as to how it's charged now. Yeah. So I think it's really interesting to learn just like things we didn't know about Google's business.

明白了。

Okay.

此外我认为我们还应该关注法官的反应，看看哪方更能赢得法官的认同，毕竟最终是由她来决定是否必须出售这个业务。

And then I think we're also we also should be paying attention to, again, how the judge is reacting, you know, who is sort of scoring points with the judge because, ultimately, she's going to make the decision as to whether they have to sell this thing.

对，对。凯瑟琳，在我们结束前快速问一下，他们尝试出售业务时为何最终没有成功？我们对此有任何了解吗？

Right. Right. And and very quickly, Katherine, just before we let you go, why didn't they end up selling the business when they tried? Did we get any insight there?

是的。你知道，这很有趣。在法庭上，他们并没有深入解释原因，只是简单提到了出售的事情。

Yeah. You know, it's interesting. On the stand, they didn't quite get into any of the rationale. They just sort of talked about a sale.

所以哪个但是

So which But

彭博社有报道称，他们参与这些努力，至少最近的一次，似乎部分是为了达成协议，但可能与此案中的政府有关，或者他们在欧洲也有这些纠纷。所以试图想办法如何摆脱这场法律战。看起来，他们愿意出售的条件，正如我所说，不包括完整的技术栈，这对政府来说是不够的。这似乎是围绕此事的一些报道所指出的，但这不是我们的报道，所以不完全确定是否属实。但我想他们——我是说，值得注意的是，这项业务，或者说它在谷歌的收益中似乎处于下滑状态。

I will there has been some reporting from Bloomberg that they're part of these efforts, at least the most recent ones, were it seems like partly trying to come to an agreement, but maybe there was some with the government with this case, or they've also, you know, have these fights in Europe happening as well. So trying to sort of figure out how do we get out of this legal battle. And it just seems like the terms or what they were willing to sell, as I said, not being the full tech stack wasn't sufficient for the government. So that seems like what some of the reporting around this is, know, it's not our reporting, so don't know fully if it's true. But, I think that they I mean, yeah, it is worth noting that this business, or it sits in seemingly on Google's earnings or, yeah, on, you know, has been declining.

所以如果他们只是想

So it kind of would make sense if they just want

市场，市场是——正如你所说，这就是这里的要点，市场正在变化，看到法官承认这一点并展望未来很有趣。凯瑟琳，非常感谢你今天来参加。祝你今天法庭诉讼的最后一天一切顺利。我们下周办公室见。这是《信息》的广告记者凯瑟琳·佩洛夫。

to The market the market is I mean, as you said, that's that's kind of the take home here is the market is changing, and it's interesting to see the judge acknowledge that and and sort of look ahead. Catherine, thank you so much for coming on. Wishing you all the best with the final day of of court proceedings today. We'll see you back here in the office next week. That is Katherine Perlov, our advertising reporter at The Information.

好的。如果你是OpenAI的密切关注者，你可能知道米拉·莫拉迪的名字。她是该公司前首席技术官，去年离职，现在正在建立自己的初创公司Thinking Machine Labs。该公司的最新估值为100亿美元。今天，我们的AI记者斯蒂芬妮·帕拉佐洛发表了一篇关于米拉·莫拉迪的深度报道，以及她周围的人如何看待她和她作为领导者的形象。

Okay. If you are a close follower of OpenAI, you probably know the name Mira Moradi. She was the former CTO of the company who left last year, and she's now building her own startup, Thinking Machine Labs. The company was last valued at $10,000,000,000. And today, our AI reporter, Stephanie Palazzolo, published an in-depth profile of Mira Moradi and how people in her orbit think about her and think about her as a leader.

斯蒂芬妮，很高兴你能来。欢迎回到节目。

Stephanie, it's great to have you. Welcome back to the show.

谢谢。很荣幸来到这里。

Thanks. Great to be here.

好的。那我们聊聊米拉马罗蒂。我想谈谈思考机器实验室。要知道，100亿美元可不是个小数目。我们稍后会详细讨论这个数字。

Okay. So let's talk about Miramarotti. I want to talk about Thinking Machine Labs. There's a well, there's, I mean, gosh, dollars 10,000,000,000 is a big number. We're going get to that.

我想先回溯一下米拉·莫拉迪离开OpenAI的时机，因为我认为这为她新公司的愿景埋下了伏笔。她当时为何离开公司？一年前究竟是什么分歧促使她决定自立门户？

I just want to rewind a little bit to when Mira Moradi left OpenAI, because I think it sets the stage for sort of what she's hoping to do with her new company. Why was it that she left the company? What was the disagreement a year ago that, you know, prompted her to sort of say, I'm going to go it on her own?

是的。米拉离开OpenAI非常突然，我认为甚至对OpenAI最高层管理人员来说都很意外。很多人直到她正式宣布时才知道她计划离职。虽然具体原因尚不明确，但我们知道她在一年前萨姆·奥尔特曼被罢免事件中扮演了角色。当时董事会与她多次沟通，她表达了对萨姆管理风格的反馈和担忧。

Yeah. So Meera's departure from OpenAI was very sudden and I think very unexpected even to executives at the highest ranking levels at OpenAI. A lot of them didn't even know that she was planning to leave until she announced it basically. And the reasons behind the departure aren't exactly clear, but we do know that she did play a role in the ouster of Sam Altman that had happened about a year prior. So when the board around that time had reached out to her, she had had multiple conversations with them about you know, feedback she had and concerns she had around Sam Altman's management style.

我们还知道，她在萨姆被解雇后迅速同意担任临时CEO。

And we also know that she, you know, very quickly agreed to become the interim CEO after Sam was fired.

没错。

Right.

没错。所以你看，在那整个事件之后，她很快就表态支持山姆。她签署了那封联名信，和OpenAI绝大多数员工一起，声明如果董事会不辞职且山姆不被复职，他们就会集体离职。

Right. So we, you know, that, you know, after that whole period, she, you know, very quickly kind of supported Sam. She signed this letter along with, you know, the vast majority of OpenAI saying that they would quit if the board didn't resign and Sam was brought back.

但最终她还是离开了。经历了这一切后，她说，我还是无法接受现状。

But then she still left. After all that, she said, I still don't like it.

是的。根据我们的调查报道，她与其他高管之间似乎确实积怨很深。人们肯定在猜测，你知道的，她在罢免事件中扮演了什么角色，以及在那次事件后她是否真的支持山姆。

Yeah. I think from our reporting, it does seem like there was a lot of bad blood still amongst her and the other execs. People definitely wondered, you know, what role she had in the ouster and whether or not she was kind of pro Sam after Okay. That incident

所以她选择自立门户。好吧。这堪称OpenAI最高调的离职事件。她现在正在创建这家名为Thinking Machine Labs的公司。顺便说，你们今天发布的专题报道刊登在我们的周末杂志上，大家都该去读一读。

So she goes it on her own. Okay. And it was quite the departure, perhaps the highest profile departure from OpenAI. She's now building this company, Thinking Machine Labs. And the profile that you published today, I should say, it's in our weekend magazine, so everyone should go read it.

关于Thinking Machine Labs试图构建的东西，我们具体知道些什么？

What exactly do we know about what Thinking Machine Labs is trying to build?

是啊，说来奇怪，知之甚少。我觉得这算是米拉的一贯风格——她在AI界是个相当神秘的人物，不过

Yeah. So surprisingly, very little. I think this is kind of a common theme with Meera. She's quite a mysterious person in AI, but

神秘的米拉·米兰尼。好吧。

Mysterious Meera Mirani. Okay.

但我们确实知道，他们告诉投资者希望推出企业级产品和消费级产品。在企业端，他们考虑创建能根据企业关键绩效指标(KPI)定制化的模型——KPI本质上是企业用来追踪运营状况的指标名称。在消费端，他们计划开发消费者可对话的AI助手。除此之外，他们一直处于高度隐秘状态，基本未透露任何具体构建内容。甚至部分我接触过的投资人也坦言，对这些产品的形态并不完全清楚，这种情况相当罕见。

But we do know that, you know, they told investors they want to come out with an enterprise product and a consumer product. On the enterprise side, they're thinking about creating models that can basically be customized to a business's KPIs, which are it's basically a name for a metric that a business tracks to see how they're doing. On the consumer side, they're thinking about creating an AI assistant that consumers can talk to. But other than that, they've been very in stealth, very quiet, have basically said nothing about what they want to build. And even some of their own investors that I spoke with are not entirely sure what these products might look like, which is quite unusual.

没错。我必须读一下报道中的这段内容，因为它精准概括了你的观点。文中写道：'这是最荒谬的融资会议，'一位见过贝拉尔迪的投资人说，'她当时说：我们要用最顶尖的AI人才创建AI公司，但我们不能回答任何问题。连投资人都被蒙在鼓里。'

Right. And I have to read this one paragraph from the story, because I think it actually very clearly articulates what you're saying. The passage reads, It was the most absurd pitch meeting, one investor who met Berardi said. She was like, So we're to do we're doing an AI company with the best AI people, but we can't answer any questions. So even the investors are in the dark.

我的问题是：除了她作为OpenAI前CTO带来的声誉光环外，究竟是什么特质如此吸引他们？她真正的魅力何在？

My question for you is, I mean, what is it about her that they're so drawn to? Besides her history, which obviously being the CTO at OpenAI, you get a lot of great goodwill that comes to that. But what is it about her exactly?

是的。我认为可归结为两点。其一是你提到的她在OpenAI的履历及建立的声誉。许多研究员视她为内部CEO——当山姆在外融资、与政商领袖周旋时，米拉才是OpenAI实际维持运营的核心人物。

Yeah. So I think it kind of boils down to two things. I think part of it is, as you mentioned, her history at OpenAI, but kind of the reputation that she built there. Many researchers there basically knew her as the internal CEO. As Sam was out fundraising and talking with politicians, business leaders, Mira was kind of the boots on the ground at OpenAI, like basically keeping things running well.

众多研究员对她评价极高，非常享受与她共事。投资者做尽职调查时，听到的都是对她的盛赞。第二点与米拉本人无关，而是她组建的梦幻团队。正如我们从Meta的AI人才争夺战中看到的，研究人才如今就是核心竞争力。她成功集结了类似'AI复仇者联盟'的阵容——包括ChatGPT创造者、OpenAI前安全高管、以及精于模型后期训练（当前至关重要的技术环节）的专家。

Lots of researchers feel very positively about her. They really enjoyed working with her, had really great things to say about her basically when investors were doing their diligence. I think the second thing is not about Mira, but about this kind of team that you've been able to assemble around her. You know, as we've seen from obviously the meta kind of AI talent war, like research talent is everything these days. And so, she's managed to assemble kind of this like avengers of AI a little bit where you have, you know, people that created ChatGPT, like top safety execs from OpenAI, people that are very knowledgeable on post training, which is this process that happens after the initial training of a model that's become, you know, very important these days.

因此我认为，吸引力既来自米拉本人，更源于她为宏大使命凝聚起的这个顶尖人才群体。

And so I think it's both a combination of Mira herself, but again, kind of this broader group of people that she's managed to kind of bring together for thinking missions.

最后简单问下，公司规模如何？知道她组建了多少人的团队吗？

And just very quickly, how big is the company? Do we know how many people she's assembled? Yeah.

所以我们不知道确切数字，但目前人数仍然相当少。我想说大概不超过50或100人。

So we don't know the exact number, but it is still fairly small. I would say probably less than, you know, 50 or 100 people at this point.

需要说明的是，这个故事里提到的是所谓赤脚文化？什么？就是光脚，保罗们。抱歉。

And we should say that this was came up the story. It's a barefoot it's called the barefoot culture? What? Like no shoes, Pauls. I'm sorry.

也许不是完全赤脚，只是不穿鞋。

Maybe not bare feet, but just no shoes.

对。这很硅谷风格，所有人摊在豆袋椅上。搞鞋子雕塑。非常优雅的一天。

Yeah. No, it's very like classic Silicon Valley, you know, the all hands people are sprawled out on bean bags. Doing shoe sculpture. Very classy day.

是啊。我不确定自己能否接受赤脚政策。

Yeah. I don't know if I know if I would go for the barefoot policy.

我觉得，

I think,

你知道，不穿鞋我或许还能接受。听着，我确实想问你，这次人物专访你没机会采访米拉马拉迪。当然，我们提出请求后由公司决定是否参与。但如果你真能采访她，你会想问什么问题？

you know, no shoes I can maybe get by. Look, I do want to ask you, you didn't have a chance to speak with Miramaradi for this profile. Of course, you know, we ask the question and the companies decide whether or not they want to participate. But if you did have an interview with Miramaradi, what questions would you want to ask her?

是的。要知道，再次呼应米拉身上那种神秘感——她很少接受媒体采访。我最好奇的是更深层的问题：究竟是什么在驱动米拉做这一切？她的宗教使命是什么？当你观察所有AI初创公司时，领导者们总能归入某些典型形象，比如埃隆那种渴望探索宇宙真理的类型。

Yeah. You know, again, with the kind of theme here of Meera being very mysterious, she doesn't talk to press very often. I think the one thing that I'm very curious about is of like a deeper question, which is just, you know, what is kind of driving Meera in all this? What's her kind of religious mission here? I think whenever you look at all these AI startups, the leaders kind of fit into these nice little boxes, little stereotypes where you have, yeah, you have Elon who, you know, kind of wants to seek like the truth of the universe.

还有Anthropic的达里奥，他被视为极度注重安全的AI领袖，虽然追求通用人工智能，却对潜在危险性忧心忡忡。当然还有山姆·奥特曼，我觉得——

And you have Dario at Anthropic who's seen as this very safety focused AI leader who wants to get to AGI, but is like so concerned with safety and the possibility of being very dangerous things. Obviously, have Sam Altman who I think-

山姆就是全能型。我想要的就是这种全能。

Sam is everything. I wanted everything.

对，山姆

Yeah. Sam

本身就是一股不可忽视的力量。他热爱聚光灯，总在谈论AI治愈癌症等潜力。而米拉的动机似乎不太明确——她研发AGI是为了治愈癌症吗？

is like, you know, a force in himself. He loves the limelight. It talks a lot about, you know, AI's potential to cure cancer and all these things. And I feel like Mira, it's not entirely clear kind of like what is driving her to do this, you know? Is she building towards AGI because she wants to cure cancer?

还是主要想打造深受消费者喜爱的卓越产品？我实在不太明白她的驱动力，很想和她探讨这个问题。

Does she mostly just want to build like really incredible products for consumers that like get a lot of consumer love? Like, it's not entirely clear to me kind of what's driving her here and I would love to talk with her about that.

没错。我们现在要把这段内容打包剪辑好，发给米拉。米拉，这是我们公开邀请你上节目回答斯蒂芬妮提出的问题：到底是什么在驱动你做这一切？

Right. Well, what we're going do is we're going to package this up, okay? We're going to put it in a clip, okay? And we're going to send it to Mira. Mira, this is our open invitation to come on our show and answer that exact question that Stephanie has, which is that what is driving to do all this?

因为投资者显然对此深信不疑。100亿美元估值，既无产品也无营收。你看，这其中蕴含巨大信心，我们试图剖析其缘由。斯蒂芬妮，感谢你来到节目，这篇人物报道非常精彩。

Because investors clearly believe it. Dollars 10,000,000,000 with no product, no revenue. You know, there's a lot of confidence there, and we want to try to unpack it. So Stephanie, thank you for coming on the show. It's a great profile.

我建议大家阅读全文。这位是TheInformation的AI领域记者斯蒂芬妮·帕拉佐罗。好的，众所周知政府已成为英特尔最新股东。但本周从我同事史蒂夫·莱文的报道中得知，特朗普政府还在与部分矿业公司洽谈入股事宜。

I encourage everyone to give it a read. That is Stephanie Palazzolo, our AI reporter at TheInformation. Okay. We all know that the government is Intel's newest shareholder. But this week, we learned from my colleague Steve Levine's reporting that the Trump administration is also talking to some minerals companies about taking stakes in those businesses too.

现在请史蒂夫为我们详细解读这些关键矿产企业的情况。史蒂夫，欢迎再次做客节目，很高兴你能来。

I want to bring on Steve to tell us more about what he knows about these critical minerals companies. Steve, welcome back to the show. It's great to have you.

谢谢，阿卡什。

Thanks. Thanks, Akash.

好的。那我们来聊聊关键矿产这个精彩行业。据我们了解——如有误请指正——这些矿产企业对制造电池至关重要，而电池又是电动车产业的核心部件，我说得对吗？

Thank Okay. So let's talk the wonderful business of critical minerals. We understand it, and correct me here. Look, these minerals companies, they are very important for the manufacturing of the batteries that have become so key to the electric vehicles industry. Do I have that right?

对。好的。那么这些企业...在我们深入之前先快速确认：具体是哪些矿产？

Yeah. Okay. All right. So we've got these companies. And very quickly before we get I mean, what are the minerals?

让我们明确一下讨论的具体对象。

Let's just name the things that we're talking about here.

嗯，其中一些是镍、锂、钴、铜。

Well, some of them, nickel, lithium, cobalt, copper.

很好，很好。好的。你看，我们手头有这篇报道，可以从很多不同角度切入。

Great. Great. Okay. So, you know, we have this story here. There's so many different angles we could go with it.

从业绩表现来看，这些矿产公司整体情况如何？或许我们可以从这里入手，这有助于理解政府为何考虑入股。

How have these minerals companies been doing broadly from a performance perspective? Maybe let's start there and that might give us a window into understanding why the government is looking to take a stake in it.

没错。背景是这样的：拜登政府迅速大力推动电动汽车和电池产业，希望美国建立这些产业与中国在全球竞争，后者是主导者。因此投入了超过600亿美元的拨款和贷款。但特朗普一月上台后冻结了所有资金。这些初创企业所在的产业尚未真正起步，至今都在等待这笔钱。

Yeah. So where this comes from is that very, very quickly, Biden administration got very heavily behind an EV industry, a battery industry, wanted The US to establish these industries, compete on a global scale against China, which is the dominant player. And so threw a lot of money, over $60,000,000,000 behind these companies in grants and loans. When Trump took power in January, he froze all that money. And so until now, these companies, which are startups, the industries aren't really going yet, they've been waiting for this money.

在此期间它们确实举步维艰。有些已经倒闭，很多靠救济维持。现在的重要消息是，我们获悉特朗普政府准备解冻部分资金，条件是政府获得这些公司的股权。

And until then, they've been struggling, really. Some of them have gone out of business. A lot of them are on life support. And the news right now, why this is important, is that we've learned that the Trump administration is prepared to free up at least some of the money in exchange for the government taking an equity stake in the companies.

政府以前也这样做过吧？之前入股过这类企业吗？其实没有。

And this is something that they've done before, right? The government has taken some stakes in some of these types of companies before? Not really.

不，你指的是往届政府，这没有先例。当然政府救助是有的，比如几十年来汽车和钢铁行业。但美国一贯谴责俄罗斯、中国等国家让政府支持企业，我们称之为'国家支持的企业'。

If No, you're talking about prior administrations, there is no history I of this, mean, you do have government bailouts. I mean, this has happened in the car industry and steel industry over the decades. But we've always, Americans, stigmatized other countries like Russia, like China, and others that put the state behind the company. We call them state backed companies.

对，对，对。

Right, right, right.

这意味着它们本身存在问题。为什么它们不能独立支撑？现在美国这么做颇具争议。我们是在看黑手党式的勒索吗？还是说在某些投资者和公司眼中，这其实是个积极转变。

And that means there's something wrong with them. Why can't they stand on their own? Now The US is doing this, it's quite controversial. Are we looking at a mafia style shakedown? Or we're seeing in the case of some of the investors, some of the companies look at this as a positive turn.

前几天有消息称Lithium Americas可能获得23亿美元贷款解禁，其股价单日暴涨96%。所以关于这是利好还是利空，目前存在争议和困惑。

When the news came out a few days ago about Lithium Americas perhaps getting their $2,300,000,000 loan released, their share price went up 96% in And one so there is some debate, there's some confusion about whether this is good or whether it's a negative And thing going

我更多是想讨论MP Materials这家公司，你曾报道过的。可能我跳得太快了。那么请介绍一下NP Materials的基本情况及其与政府的关系。

more what I was getting at was this company, MP Materials, a company that you had written about. And I guess maybe I had jumped too far ahead. So NP Materials, tell us a little bit about what we know and their relationship with the government.

是的。稀土其实并不稀有，只是名字这么叫。它们98%都在中国开采加工。这些是武器系统、我军最先进战机以及电动车电机的关键部件。中国已对部分稀土实施封锁。

Yeah. So rare earths are not rare, they've gotten this name. And they're almost all, like 98% of them, are mined and processed in China. These are a critical component in weapons systems, in our military, most advanced military jets, and in the motors that go into EVs. China has put a block on some of the rare earths.

因此特朗普政府认为我们需要自主掌握部分这类金属。于是向加州企业MP Materials提供4亿美元，助其扩建矿山和加工设施，换取15%的

So the Trump administration, we need to capture at least some of those metals ourselves. And so offered $400,000,000 to a California company, MP Materials, to help them build out their mine and their processing in exchange for a 15%

公司股份。你的最新报道显示这类谈判正扩展到更多矿业公司。稍后我想了解宏观图景，但先问个具体问题：政府持有这些股份后如何处置？想想风险投资的逻辑，最终意味着什么？

share of the company. So your reporting now shows that those discussions are going even wider, I guess, a broader set of minerals companies, it looks like. You know, I want to get sort of the big picture here in a second, but a very tactical question. What does the government do with all these stakes? Like, what ends up mean, you know, think about venture capital.

风险投资家寻求退出机制，对吧？你投资公司时，就希望有朝一日能退出。这里的设想是他们会在某个时间点出售股份吗？作为政府，你们最终会如何处理所持股份？

Venture capitalists look for an exit, right? You've asked for the company, you hope that you exit. Is the idea here that they will sell it at some point? What do you end up doing with a stake as the government?

没错。嗯，由于这个模式太新且从未实施过，

Right. Well, since it's so new and never been done,

实际上没人真正清楚。没人知道答案，对吧？

no one really knows. No one knows, right?

对。但其中一个推测是，所有股份将归入美国主权财富基金，美国会从中获利。关键在于这里存在'我能得到什么好处'的叙事逻辑。美国政府给你贷款或补助，它自己图什么呢？

Right. But one of the conjectures are that all the stakes go into a US sovereign wealth fund, and The US somehow profits from this. The thing is that there's a what's in it for me sort of narrative here. Okay, The US is going to give you this loan or a grant. What's in it for The US?

政府向来也明白这点。这些企业会创造就业岗位，会缴纳税收，而且

The government has always seen these as well. These companies are going to create jobs. They're to pay taxes, and

它们

they're

将促进经济发展，这就是政府能获得的回报。至于你的问题，我不知道答案，也没人知道答案。

going to improve the economy, that's what's in it for you. Right. To your question, I don't know what the answer is. No one knows what the answer is.

好的。那么最后一个问题。如果我们退一步看，回到之前讨论的话题，这些矿产公司以及更广泛的电动车行业的表现。这是否能告诉我们电动车行业可能如何发展？这是否意味着之前不存在的生命线出现了？

Right. And so last question for you. If we take a step back here, going back to what we were talking about earlier, the performance of these minerals companies and the EV sector more broadly. Does this tell us anything about how the EV sector might progress? Is it evidence of a lifeline that wasn't there before?

你知道，他们首先能从这些中获得更多资金吗？比如，谈谈你对这个故事进展的看法。

You know, are they even getting any more cash from any of this in the first place? Like, talk to me a little bit about how you see this story progressing.

是的。短期和中期来看，这实际上是一个积极的发展。这些公司大多数都在勉强维持运营，对吧？我是说，他们没有资金，正处于等待电动车行业真正崛起的死亡谷，这可能要到本年代末才能实现，这意味着他们需要五年的生存时间。而现在他们有可能获得一大笔资金，这可以吸引更多投资。

Yeah. In the short and the medium term, it's actually a positive development. These companies, most of them, are operating on fumes, right? I mean, there's no cash, and they're in this death valley of waiting for the industry to really emerge, the EV industry, which may not be until the end of the decade, which means they need five years of life. And so here they've got the potential to have a pile of cash, and that can attract more investment.

我们已经看到了这一点。这不仅仅是理论上的。Lithium America的股价确实上涨了96%。所以这有帮助。因此，我认为这对公司来说是一个积极的信号，但这不是即将发生的事情。

And we saw this. That's not just notional. Lithium America shares did go up 96%. So It helps. So I would say it's a positive sign for the companies, and, you know, but this isn't something imminent.

还需要等待几年。没错。

Be waiting few years. Right.

太好了。史蒂夫，非常感谢你参加我们的节目。史蒂夫·莱文是《The Electric》的作者，这是我们The Information Knight的电动车通讯。强烈建议你去看看。今天的节目就到这里，各位。

Great. Well, Steve, thank you so much for coming on the show. Steve Levine is the author of The Electric, our electric vehicles newsletter here at The Information Knight. Highly suggest you go check it out. And with that, that does it for today's show, folks.

提醒一下，我们每周一到周五太平洋时间上午10点，东部时间下午1点在这个直播流上直播。我要感谢亚马逊网络服务，他们是本节目的主要赞助商。我还要感谢你们的收看。我们真的很感谢你们的观看。我已经对下周一的节目感到兴奋了。

A reminder that we are live on this stream Monday through Friday at 10AM Pacific, 1PM eastern. I wanna thank Amazon Web Services who is our presenting sponsor for this production. And I wanna thank you for tuning in. We really do appreciate your viewership. I am already excited for our next show on Monday.

那么在那之前，祝你周末愉快。暂时先再见啦。

And so until then, have a great weekend. Bye bye for now.