Conversations
Candid, off-the-record conversations
Private gatherings convened by Digital Battlefield Group — bringing senior leaders from government, technology, science, media, and finance into the same room.
About these gatheringsMost Fridays
12:00–1:00 PM Pacific, by invitation.
Cross-disciplinary
Leaders from government, science, tech, media, and finance.
Chatham House Rule
No press, no recordings. Discretion by default.
Past
Hot Nerd Summer #11
Hot Nerd Summer #11 — Save the Date Hot Nerd Summer is a standing Friday conversation: candid, off-the-record discussions among accomplished people from across government, science, technology, media, and finance — convened to think out loud about the forces shaping the next decade. Recent sessions have ranged across the national debt and a looming fiscal reckoning, the future of healthcare, the promise and the hype of artificial intelligence, the agentic web and the fight to tell humans from machines, geopolitics and national security, the search for intelligence beyond Earth, federalism, and what it takes to keep a great country great. The point is not to reach consensus, but to bring together people who would not normally share a table — and let the conversation go where it will. Speaker and topic to be announced. Held under the Chatham House Rule. 12:00 PM PT / 3:00 PM ET · 60 minutes including Q&A · Zoom.
TBA - invite will be updated and more...
Hot Nerd Summer #10
Hot Nerd Summer #10 — Save the Date Hot Nerd Summer is a standing Friday conversation: candid, off-the-record discussions among accomplished people from across government, science, technology, media, and finance — convened to think out loud about the forces shaping the next decade. Recent sessions have ranged across the national debt and a looming fiscal reckoning, the future of healthcare, the promise and the hype of artificial intelligence, the agentic web and the fight to tell humans from machines, geopolitics and national security, the search for intelligence beyond Earth, federalism, and what it takes to keep a great country great. The point is not to reach consensus, but to bring together people who would not normally share a table — and let the conversation go where it will. Speaker and topic to be announced. Held under the Chatham House Rule. 12:00 PM PT / 3:00 PM ET · 60 minutes including Q&A · Zoom.
TBA - invite will be updated and more...
Understanding the Real China: Economy, Politics, Taiwan & the AI Contest
Briefing Call: China <> US Relationship A private briefing with one of Asia's most experienced diplomats, joined by former cabinet officials, ambassadors, a special operations commander, and AI researchers. The conversation set out to read China on its own terms: why a political system that runs against the grain of Western history runs with the grain of Chinese history, what three decades of manufacturing strategy actually bought, why Beijing believes time is on its side over Taiwan, how the global south reads a quarrel it never asked to join, and why the AI contest may end not in victory for either side but in a destructive tie. Held under the Chatham House Rule. Selected, unattributed quotes below.
Kishore Mahbubani, Henrietta Fore, Admiral William McRaven and more...
Building From Zero: Founders, Investors & What AI Changes
Hot Nerd Summer #9 The ninth session of Hot Nerd Summer put founders and investors in the same room to ask what building from nothing looks like now. The conversation ran from starting alone at a desk to six and a half billion in revenue, to why the durable AI businesses will be the ones that become the reference operating system for an entire industry; from a candid read on which parts of the current market are a bubble, to a middle of the labour market that is hollowing out, to hiring for who someone is rather than what they know, and a health system that pays to treat disease and nothing to prevent it. Held under the Chatham House Rule, with voices from venture capital, consumer retail, machine learning, public finance, and enterprise AI. Selected, unattributed quotes below.
Sehr Thadhani, Brad Keywell, Rick Heitzmann and more...
Radical Candor, Feeding the Many & the Politicization of Science
Hot Nerd Summer #8 The eighth session of Hot Nerd Summer moved from the mechanics of honest feedback, to the logistics of feeding people in disaster zones, to the quiet capture of what counts as science. The conversation covered why flattery — including the machine kind — is more dangerous than criticism, why a walk beats a meeting and a phone call beats video, how an organisation that refuses to write plans manages to arrive first, why free rice can put a country's own farmers out of work, and what follows when political appointees are handed authority over which research qualifies as gold standard. Held under the Chatham House Rule, with voices from Silicon Valley, publishing, humanitarian relief, and public health. Selected, unattributed quotes below.
Jason Feifer, Kim Scott, Esther Dyson and more...
Affordability, Messaging & the Case for Independents
Hot Nerd Summer #7 The seventh session of Hot Nerd Summer took up the politics of affordability — and the argument that the country is far less divided than its politics make it look. A sitting congressman, two former lieutenant governors, a mayor, and a former U.S. Comptroller General worked through why a message that fits on a bumper sticker beats one that runs to footnotes, how primaries decide the outcome in eighty to ninety percent of districts and pull candidates away from the middle, what a party organized around principles rather than a platform would look like, and why the only growing bloc of American voters belongs to neither side. Held under the Chatham House Rule, with voices from Congress, statehouses, city hall, and public finance. Selected, unattributed quotes below.
Billy Ray, Congressman Don Beyer, Kerry Healey and more...
Longevity Science, Media Trust & Predictive AI in Healthcare
Hot Nerd Summer #6 The sixth session of Hot Nerd Summer ran in three movements: the biology of aging, the long argument over trust in the press, and what predictive AI can actually do inside a health system. The conversation moved from proteins now folded a billion at a time to why we run a disease care system rather than a health care one; from the difference between a newsroom with a point of view and one with an agenda, to the case that the binding constraint in medicine is not too few algorithms but far too few physicians. Held under the Chatham House Rule, with voices from longevity research, venture capital, national newsrooms, and machine learning. Selected, unattributed quotes below.
Jason Pontin, Juan Enríquez, Hal Barron and more...
July 4th Special: Leadership, Iran, Ukraine & the Reinvention of America
Hot Nerd Summer #5 The fifth session of Hot Nerd Summer landed on the Fourth of July, and took the holiday as an invitation to ask what the country is actually becoming. The discussion ran from why people who have served find it harder to call other Americans enemies, to a blunt verdict on the Iran war and what it taught small powers about stopping great ones; from the arithmetic of attrition in Ukraine, to a defense acquisition system that sent 99.3 percent of last year's contracts to the same handful of primes, to the argument that this is not an election cycle at all but a reinvention of the country of the kind that arrives roughly every eighty years. Held under the Chatham House Rule, with voices from Congress, the Navy, the intelligence community, and Silicon Valley. Selected, unattributed quotes below.
Congressman Seth Moulton, Admiral Mark Montgomery, Peter Leyden and more...
The Future of Space: Orbital Congestion, Commerce, Nationalism & Inspiration
Hot Nerd Summer #4 The fourth session of Hot Nerd Summer turned to space — and to the gap between what we can now do above the atmosphere and the rules, the money, and the motives that govern it. The discussion took on orbital congestion and the near-total absence of enforceable governance, the commercial gold rush and whose business case actually closes, asteroid mining as a driver of wealth disparity, and the uneasy relationship between science, nationalism, and private capital. Held under the Chatham House Rule, with voices from NASA, the astronaut corps, planetary science, and public finance. Selected, unattributed quotes below.
Sean O'Keefe, Gideon Lichfield, Cady Coleman and more...
The Global Report Card: Progress, Agency & the Open Web
Hot Nerd Summer #3 The third session of Hot Nerd Summer delivered a global report card. The conversation weighed the genuine, measurable progress in human welfare against democratic backsliding and the erosion of norms, then turned to agency, “information diabetes,” universal basic service, federalism as a laboratory for reform, the open web and open-source AI, and academic freedom. Held under the Chatham House Rule, in the spirit of solving problems one at a time. Selected, unattributed quotes below.
Steven Pinker, Esther Dyson, Grover Norquist and more...
Agentic AI, the Future of the Web, UAPs & the AI Bubble
Hot Nerd Summer #2 The second session of Hot Nerd Summer turned to the machines — and what they are about to do to the open web. The discussion explored agentic AI and the coming flood of non-human traffic, the fight to keep a clear line between humans and bots, the economics of an AI bubble, the worst budget system in the world, and the evidence — and theatre — around unidentified anomalous phenomena. Held under the Chatham House Rule, with voices from astrophysics, intelligence, Congress, media, and AI research. Selected, unattributed quotes below.
Nick Thompson, Avi Loeb, Congressman Van Taylor and more...
Debt, Healthcare, AI, Media & National Security
Hot Nerd Summer #1 The opening session of Hot Nerd Summer convened a cross-disciplinary group to take on the forces bearing down on America's future — the national debt, a healthcare system riddled with perverse incentives, the promise and the hype of artificial intelligence, the fragmentation of media and trust, and national security. The conversation ranged from a looming fiscal reckoning to why sepsis still kills at ten times the necessary rate, from the prospect of an AI winter to China reaching parity in AI — a frank, generational look at how to keep a great country great. Held under the Chatham House Rule. Selected, unattributed quotes below.
David Walker, George Halvorson, Peter Norvig and more...
Private Briefings on Iran with former Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Seyed Hossein Mousavian - May 8
On Friday May 8 at 3pm ET / 12pm PT, we're hosting private, Chatham House rule Zooms on the Iran conflict, a rare look at track two diplomacy behind the scenes. We will be interviewing Seyed Hossein Mousavian, Iran's former chief nuclear negotiator and ambassador to Germany and joined by diplomats and thought leaders from around the world. The conversation will be candid and off the record.
Seyed Hossein Mousavian and more...
Private Briefings on Iran with former Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Seyed Hossein Mousavian - May 1
On Friday May 1 at 3pm ET / 12pm PT, we're hosting private, Chatham House rule Zooms on the Iran conflict, a rare look at track two diplomacy behind the scenes. We will be interviewing Seyed Hossein Mousavian, Iran's former chief nuclear negotiator and ambassador to Germany and joined by diplomats and thought leaders from around the world. The conversation will be candid and off the record.
Seyed Hossein Mousavian and more...
Private in-person dinner Human X - 8th April
In San Francisco on April 8th, we’ll be at the premiere AI conference, HumanX, hosting private in-person dinners on the intersection of national security and AI. We'll be joined by: Head of trust and safety at Wikipedia Jan Eissfeldt, Canadian former security intelligence and former extremist Mubin Shaikh, Head of Applied AI Strategy and Global Security at Scale AI Christopher Kirchhoff, award-winning author of the 'Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11' Lawrence Wright, and former Harvard Business Review chief Adi Ingatius, among others.
Jan Eissfeldt, Mubin Shaikh, Christopher Kirchhoff and more...
Private in-person dinner Human X - 7th April
In San Francisco on April 7th, we’ll be at the premiere AI conference, HumanX, hosting private in-person dinners on the intersection of national security and AI. We'll be joined by: Head of trust and safety at Wikipedia Jan Eissfeldt, Canadian former security intelligence and former extremist Mubin Shaikh, Head of Applied AI Strategy and Global Security at Scale AI Christopher Kirchhoff, award-winning author of the 'Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11' Lawrence Wright, and former Harvard Business Review chief Adi Ingatius, among others.
Jan Eissfeldt, Mubin Shaikh, Christopher Kirchhoff and more...
Discussion with Kai-Fu Lee, China Is Winning the Open Source War
AI founder Kai-Fu Lee joins a Chatham House roundtable of global technologists, diplomats, and security experts for an unfiltered conversation on AI, geopolitics, and the shifting world order.
Kai-Fu Lee, Larry Brilliant, Shyam Saran and more...
What the West Is Getting Dangerously Wrong About Iran
A rare 360-degree conversation with Gillian Tett, Arab League Secretary General designate Nabil Fahmy, and global insiders on the Iran conflict, energy shocks, and why the off-ramp still exists - if anyone is willing to take it.
Gillian Tett, Sir Martin Sorrell, Esther Dyson and more...