{"id":110679,"date":"2026-06-05T11:50:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T11:50:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/05\/founders-fund-launches-game-show-starring-sam-altman-palmer-luckey-and-other-tech-elites\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T11:50:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T11:50:22","slug":"founders-fund-launches-game-show-starring-sam-altman-palmer-luckey-and-other-tech-elites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/05\/founders-fund-launches-game-show-starring-sam-altman-palmer-luckey-and-other-tech-elites\/","title":{"rendered":"Founders Fund launches game show starring Sam Altman, Palmer Luckey, and other tech elites"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Have you ever had the desire to see Sam Altman and Palmer Luckey square off over a moderately suspenseful card game? If so, you are in luck. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Silicon Valley\u2019s leaders are rushing to embrace the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2025\/nov\/29\/big-tech-silicon-valley-ceo-media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">power of media<\/a> for the purposes of <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/technology\/5822647-tech-leaders-turn-to-podcasts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">marketing<\/a> and political capital. Now, in a sign of the times, Founders Fund, the venture capital firm co-founded by Peter Thiel, has launched its own game show.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMAFIA the GAME,\u201d will apparently be an ongoing thing, where prominent tech luminaries get together and face off over a game of cards (the show is named after the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mafia_(party_game)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">party-game favorite<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The spectacle is moderated by Pirate Wires editor Mike Solana (who is also the chief marketing officer at Founders Fund). The debut episode includes a who\u2019s who of players \u2014 Sam Altman; Palmer Luckey; Bryan Johnson, the famed biohacker who will (according to him) live forever; and Moxie Marlinspike, the founder of encrypted chat app Signal.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<p>\n<iframe title=\"Can Tech Legends Find the Liar? (Mafia Episode 1)\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EDCwQe7P8T0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI\u2019m so f*cking bored with VC content,\u201d Solana <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newcomer.co\/p\/founders-funds-new-media-play-tech\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">told Newcomer<\/a>, which originally reported the show\u2019s existence. \u201cThere has to be a more interesting way to get to know someone, and I think that this is a way more interesting way to get to know someone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">TechCrunch reached out to Founders Fund for more information on the program. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In many ways, having a reality-TV-esque platform is just good business these days. The internet has turned the world into a population of chronic media consumers, and the average American spends around 2.5 hours on social media per day. Much of that time is spent scrolling through an endless flood of advertising-laced memes and videos. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the modern era, the road to power and influence is paved with infotainment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Companies and executives have sought to take advantage of this new reality in different ways. OpenAI recently raised some eyebrows when it <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/04\/02\/openai-acquires-tbpn-the-buzzy-founder-led-business-talk-show\/\">procured TBPN, the buzzy founder-led podcast<\/a>. Meanwhile, a number of tech\u2019s most prominent players have leveraged virality to their advantage. Johnson, for instance, has managed to grow his following through a very active (and quite bizarre) social media presence. Elon Musk, meanwhile, has also managed to leverage his public persona to go viral (although arguments could be made that his online presence has sometimes hurt rather than helped his businesses).<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This trend has also spread <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inc.com\/annabel-burba\/the-latest-perk-andreessen-horowitz-offers-startups-going-viral-on-demand\/91264929\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">to the startup space<\/a>, where people like Cluely CEO Chungin \u201cRoy\u201d Lee have demonstrated the <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/11\/05\/cluelys-roy-lee-hints-that-viral-hype-is-not-enough\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">power of being a one-man viral hype machine<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em>When you purchase through links in our articles, <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/techcrunch-affiliate-monetization-standards\/\">we may earn a small commission<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/06\/04\/founders-fund-launches-game-show-starring-sam-altman-palmer-luckey-and-other-tech-elites\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you ever had the desire to see Sam Altman and Palmer Luckey square off over a moderately suspenseful card game? If so, you are<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":110680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[149],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}