Jasmine Sun (Substack, X, LinkedIn) is an independent writer and journalist. She is a contributing writer for The Atlantic and also writes for other major publications, like The New York Times. She previously led core product at Substack.
Jasmine focuses on Silicon Valley and AI, and is something of a participant observer, living among the strange and inspiring people pulling the future forward in San Francisco. In her writing, she plays to both sides: focusing on a more endemic audience with her newsletter while telling the broader world about what she learns in flagship pieces for major publications. Several of these anchor around memes that she thinks may deeply matter: “the permanent underclass,” “chinese peptides,” and “claude code psychosis,” to name a few.
Jasmine has done many interviews about these individual topics, so I wanted to focus on her and her approach: playing to both audiences, her taste in questions and topics, doing both “serious” journalism and more personal writing, how going independent wasn’t so risky, what she admires in great writing, AI and her coming “AlphaGo moment,” China, and more. Please enjoy.
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Timestamps:
(0:00) Opening Highlights
(1:30) Intro to Jasmine
(2:13) Thanks to Notion
(3:24) Start: Being a "Historian of Vibe" and Learning to Look
(15:00) Taste for Questions & The Depth Behind Memes
(24:28) Translating Between Silicon Valley and The World
(40:27) Substack vs. "Serious" Journalism and Integrity as a Writer
(47:35) Integrity when Using AI and the AlphaGo Question
(58:42) Strategy Across Publications & Maximizing an Idea's Reach
(1:06:45) Going Independent, Risk, and Commercial Tradeoffs
(1:24:35) Great Writing: Style, Voice, and Resisting Summary
(1:35:35) Literary Inspirations, Favorite Essays, Writing vs. Thinking, and Getting Better
(1:51:09) Writing to Publish, Authenticity, and Art
(2:00:38) Grab Bag: China, Silicon Valley's Virtues and Problems, AI Transition, The Relational Economy, Parties, Debates, Self Belief, and More
(2:35:16) Thanks Again to Notion
Select Articles From Jasmine
Silicon Valley is Bracing for a Permanent Underclass (NYT)
‘Chinese Peptides’ Are the Latest Biohacking Trend in the Tech World (NYT)
Claude code psychosis (Substack)
Notes on AI, labor, and China (Substack)
America against china against america (Substack)
The Human Skill That Eludes AI (The Atlantic)
