One of my philosophies for this newsletter is to write about the things that I’m thinking about anyway.
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I → write → that
But there’s long been a deficiency when it comes to our coverage of AI, which occupies more and more of my headspace even though we only write about it occasionally.
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we → come → it
Not only am I profoundly interested in increasingly less abstract questions about how AI progress might disrupt society, but I’m also becoming much more of a power user because AI programming tools have reached the point where they’re now quite helpful with programming our various politics and sports models.
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they → disrupt → models
I’ve spent something like 700 hours1 working on these models since March2, with Claude and ChatGPT serving essentially as my coding assistants.
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Claude → spend → assistants
On a less personal level, we’ve probably passed a long-predicted inflection point where AI is playing a much more prominent role in American politics.
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AI → pass → politics
And much of the public’s uncertainty about AI has been channeled into a variety of concerns and anxieties around data centers.
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much → channel → centers
Google searches for the term “data center” can bounce around some, but so far in 2026, they’re about 3.5x higher than in 2025 and almost 10x higher than in 2024.
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they → bounce → 2024
Data centers are overwhelmingly unpopular, with about 70 percent of Americans opposing the construction of data centers in their communities.
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percent → oppose → communities
They were a big story in the Democratic primaries in Michigan and Wisconsin, but even red states like Texas are beginning to have their doubts.
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states → begin → doubts
So I thought it was a great time for a chat with Jasmine Sun.
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it → think → Sun
Jasmine is based in San Francisco — I first met her when she was a product manager at Substack — but she’s now an independent journalist and newsletter writer who knows the tech industry well by virtue of having worked in it.
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who → base → it
She recently took a long “field trip” to Wisconsin and Michigan to study opposition to data centers on the ground, speaking with local residents as well as politicians like Abdul El-Sayed.
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She → take → Sayed
It’s truly excellent, nonpartisan work, and speaks to how out of touch Silicon Valley has become with the rest of the country’s concerns.
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Valley → ’ → concerns
But this is one of those cases where I’d probably recommend reading the (lightly edited) transcript instead.
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I → recommend → transcript
That’s both because we removed a portion where I got knocked off the Internet at some point (maybe our robot overlords weren’t happy about our little chat) and because the conversation gets technical in places and it’s helpful to have links and footnotes that explain some of the terminology.
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that → ’ → terminology
Indeed, one of the challenges Silicon Valley faces is that much can be lost in translation in any and all discussions on AI policy.
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much → face → policy
You just got back from a reporting trip to the Midwest, right?
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You → get → Midwest
I did about 10 days in Wisconsin and Michigan, then about a week and a half in New York, and now I’m back in SF, where I’m normally based.
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I → do → SF
It’s good to be back in the city.
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It → ’ → city
I wanted to give a big plug for your newsletter.
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I → want → newsletter
What the data center backlash looks like on the ground
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looks → look → ground
I think I saw you at the Manifest conference a couple of years ago — the nerdiest conference out of all the nerdy conferences I’ve ever been to.
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I → think → conferences
But the reason I want to plug it is that you’re doing a lot of deep, original, thoughtful reporting and analysis.
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you → want → reporting
Substack is great, but it’s often more rewarding for things like “takes”.
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it → ’ → takes
Obviously we have our election models and things like that.
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we → have → that
But it doesn’t reward reporting as much, which is an incredibly important and valuable thing.
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which → reward → reporting
It might result in one post taking several weeks instead of a few hours.
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post → result → weeks
What inspired you to take this long journey?
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What → inspire → journey
One thing is that I am just not as good as many of the Substackerati at churning out 1,000-word takes on whatever just broke.
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whatever → churn → takes
I’m very impressed by people who can come up with, “here’s my 30 takes from the election that happened last night”.
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that → ’m → election
I read that stuff, it’s amazing.
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it → read → stuff
But I’m better at taking a bit more time to research, report, and think about things.
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I → ’m → things
I mostly cover AI and Silicon Valley from a cultural and politics angle.
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I → cover → angle
A lot of my work is either trying to explain what is going on in Silicon Valley and the AI industry, which is extremely weird, as you know, to the rest of the world.
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you → try → world
Or in times like this, trying to talk to folks outside of SF about how technology is impacting other places, and bring some of that knowledge back to my friends in Silicon Valley.
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technology → try → Valley
Over the past six months, as many people have seen, the data center backlash has picked up, and I think even the broader AI backlash has gotten quite a bit more intense.
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backlash → see → months
People remember the booing at college graduations anytime a speaker mentions AI.
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speaker → remember → AI
Or the assassination attempts, like of Sam Altman, that were motivated by more x-risky [existential risk] concerns — a gunman from the Stop AI people showed up at the OpenAI office.3 There was an Indiana councilman who approved a data center project, and someone shot a gun 13 times at his front door.
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someone → motivate → door
So I saw these [data center] moratoriums popping up, and I was just like, wow, people really don’t like AI.
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people → see → AI
They really, really don’t like data centers.
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They → like → centers
…and 568 more, not listed.
