EP 136: Zach Weinberg (Co-Founder & CEO, Curie.Bio) on The Tariff Trap, Self-Inflicted Recession Risk, and Open AI’s Fundraise
The Logan Bartlett ShowShow Notes
In this freeform episode, Logan sits down with Zach Weinberg (Co-Founder and CEO of Curie.Bio) to break down two of the biggest storylines in tech: tariffs and AI. They banter through the core arguments for and against tariffs, including national security, domestic employment, and negotiation power. Plus, they revisit what’s happened in past trade wars and share predictions on the real economic consequences this time around. Logan and Zach also discuss OpenAI’s $40B raise and the broader race for AI dominance—can OpenAI maintain its lead against tech giants like Google and Apple? They debate the limits of product defensibility, the power of platform defaults, and the strategic moves OpenAI might need to make to stay ahead. Topics include: The arguments for and against tariffs What happened during past U.S. tariff cycles—and how this one compares Whether OpenAI can maintain its edge in a world of native AI platforms A possible playbook for OpenAI to build user lock-in beyond utility What this era of AI competition means for the U.S.—and what could derail it
(00:00) Intro (01:35) Liberation Day and Global Trade (02:13) Freeform Discussion on Various Topics (02:44) Podcasting and VC Life (03:32) Debating Tariffs and National Security (11:26) Arguments Against Tariffs (22:19) Historical Context of Tariffs (26:58) Economic Predictions and Stagflation (33:39) The Forgotten Lessons of Recessions (36:02) The Fixed vs. Growth Mindset in Economics (37:17) The Democratic Party's Shift on Economic Policies (42:33) The Rise of Populism and Its Impact (50:28) OpenAI's Explosive Growth and Challenges (54:28) The Competitive Landscape of AI (58:33) The Future of AI and Consumer Behavior (01:07:20) The Role of Social Networking in AI's Future (01:10:43) Wildcard: The Role of XAI and Grok
Executive Producer: Rashad Assir Producer: Leah Clapper Mixing and editing: Justin Hrabovsky Check out Unsupervised Learning, Redpoint's AI Podcast: / @redpointai
🎙 Listen to the show Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5WqBqDb... Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0... 🎥 Subscribe on YouTube: / @theloganbartlettshow Follow on Socials 📸 Instagram - / theloganbartlettshow 🐦 Twitter - / loganbartshow 🎬 Clips on TikTok - / theloganbartlettshow About the Show Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode, Logan goes behind the scenes with world-class entrepreneurs and investors. If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every Friday for new episodes.
More from The Logan Bartlett Show
Bret Taylor is the CEO of Sierra and Chairman of the Board of OpenAI. He previously served as co-CEO of Salesforce. I sat down with Bret to explore how the AI revolution compares to previous platform shifts and what it means for both startups and incumbents navigating this transition.
Logan is joined by Marc Benioff, the legendary co-founder and CEO of Salesforce, for a wide-ranging conversation on the rise of AI in enterprises. Marc explains how Salesforce has become the testing ground for its own “agentic” technology, using AI agents to handle customer support, boost sales, and transform marketing. He also shares his perspective on what’s hype vs. reality in the AI race, the opportunities for startups, and why the future is about humans and agents working together.
Joe Hudson is the founder of The Art of Accomplishment and has worked with many top leaders in Silicon Valley, including Sam Altman and executives from Apple, Google, the NBA, and more. He coaches the research and compute teams at OpenAI and works with all the major AI companies.
Chris Degnan is one of the most legendary CROs of this generation. He joined Snowflake as employee #13 and the 1st sales hire. He scaled the sales org from 0 to over $3B in ARR, spanned four CEOs, and retired as CRO after 11 years.
Logan sits down with Bipul Sinha, CEO and co-founder of Rubrik and former VC at Lightspeed and Blumberg Capital. Bipul shares what he learned transitioning from investor to founder, why intuition beats expertise, and how he built Rubrik into a category-defining business by betting on uncool ideas. They talk product-market fit in the AI era, what most VCs get wrong today, and why the enterprise IT market is still just getting started. It’s a conversation packed with hard-earned wisdom and bold takes on building lasting companies.