Big Tech’s Big Bet on Trump
The Daily
01/13/25
•32m
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Big Tech’s biggest names are throwing their weight behind Donald J. Trump in the biggest possible way, first as candidate and now as president-elect.
Erin Griffith, who covers tech companies and Silicon Valley for The Times, charts the tech billionaire Marc Andreessen’s journey from top-tier democratic donor to Trump adviser, and explains what it reveals about the growing MAGA-fication of Silicon Valley.
Guests: Erin Griffith, who covers tech companies and Silicon Valley for The New York Times.
Background reading:
- Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s sprint to remake Meta for the Trump era.
- The executives of tech’s biggest companies largely ignored Mr. Trump before the 2016 election. This time around, they were far more friendly.
- Wealthy donors to the president-elect’s campaign anticipate a more business-friendly atmosphere, including the firing of Biden-era regulators.
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
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The Sunday Read: ‘What Alice Munro Knew’
January 12, 2025
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“My life has gone rosy, again,” Alice Munro told a friend in a buoyant letter of March 1975. For Munro, who was then emerging as one of her generation’s leading writers, the previous few years had been blighted by heartbreak and upheaval: a painful separation from her husband of two decades; a retreat from British Columbia back to her native Ontario; a series of brief but bruising love affairs, in which, it seems, Munro could never quite make out the writing on the wall. “This time it’s real,” she wrote, speaking of a new romantic partner, Gerald Fremlin, the emphasis acknowledging that her friend had heard these words before. “He’s 50, free, a good man if I ever saw one, tough and gentle like in the old tire ads, and this is the big thing — grown-up.”
The judgment would prove premature. In July 2024, two months after Munro’s death at age 92, Andrea Skinner, the youngest of her three daughters, revealed in an essay in The Toronto Star that Fremlin had sexually abused her.
Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Next Episode
Could the L.A. Fires Have Been Stopped Sooner?
January 14, 2025
•39m
A week after fires broke out in the Los Angeles area, Californians are grappling with the widespread destruction.
They’re also seeking answers from their leaders about why so much has been lost.
Mike Baker and Christopher Flavelle, who have been covering the fires, discuss the authorities’ response and whether some of the devastation could have been avoided.
Guests:
- Mike Baker, a national reporter for The New York Times.
- Christopher Flavelle, a reporter for The New York Times.
Background reading:
- Some Pacific Palisades residents said the community had long asked for more detailed fire preparation plans.
- The L.A. fires show the limits of America’s efforts to cope with climate change.
- How Los Angeles firefighters ran out of water.
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
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