The Heir to SBF: Leopold Aschenbrenner and the collapse of Situational Awareness ft. Mary Houlihan

Subscribe to our Patreon for more bonus content at patreon.com/c/DystopiaNow!

This week, we're joined by comedian Mary Houlihan: we talk about Leopold Aschenbrenner, the 'wunderkind' in charge of Situational Awareness, a hedge fund named for his 2024 essay speculating on AGI and which recently lost $35 billion. We trace the networks of connections and massive amounts of money in the AI, tech, and Effective Altruism scenes.

Find Mary's podcast on YouTube and more at linktr.ee/maryhoulie. This episode was informed by David Morris's article "Son of Sam: Aschenbrenner was SBF 2.0," found on his Substack Dark Markets.

Further Reading

- The original Situational Awareness essay by Leopold Aschenbrenner: https://situational-awareness.ai/

- David Morris, "Son of Sam: Aschenbrenner was SBF 2.0," davidzmorris.substack.com/p/son-of-sam-aschenbrenner-was-sbf

- Jeff Brown, "Situationally Unaware," https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/31/why-leopold-aschenbrenner-situational-awareness-hedge-fund-imploded.html