{"id":2446265,"date":"2026-06-05T13:42:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T13:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2446265"},"modified":"2026-06-05T13:42:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T13:42:18","slug":"founders-funds-new-media-play-tech-celebrities-playing-mafia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/founders-funds-new-media-play-tech-celebrities-playing-mafia\/","title":{"rendered":"Founders Fund&#8217;s New Media Play: Tech Celebrities Playing Mafia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\n<div class=\"captioned-image-container\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!DhRb!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3b582172-d1a2-4b57-a980-8f80e937e4c0_719x404.png\" data-component-name=\"Image2ToDOM\" class=\"image-link image2 is-viewable-img can-restack\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image2-inset\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!DhRb!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3b582172-d1a2-4b57-a980-8f80e937e4c0_719x404.png\" width=\"719\" height=\"404\" data-attrs=\"{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/3b582172-d1a2-4b57-a980-8f80e937e4c0_719x404.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:404,&quot;width&quot;:719,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:467453,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image\/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.newcomer.co\/i\/200604902?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3b582172-d1a2-4b57-a980-8f80e937e4c0_719x404.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!DhRb!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3b582172-d1a2-4b57-a980-8f80e937e4c0_719x404.png 424w, https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!DhRb!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3b582172-d1a2-4b57-a980-8f80e937e4c0_719x404.png 848w, https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!DhRb!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3b582172-d1a2-4b57-a980-8f80e937e4c0_719x404.png 1272w, https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!DhRb!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3b582172-d1a2-4b57-a980-8f80e937e4c0_719x404.png 1456w\" sizes=\"100vw\" fetchpriority=\"high\" class=\"sizing-normal\"\/><\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Given the state of legacy media these days \u2014 talk shows cancelled, a venerated investigative news series in turmoil \u2014 you\u2019d think VC firms would want little to do with the industry of creating content. But the lure of making old-school TV is just too strong for Silicon Valley to resist.<\/p>\n<p><span>The latest, and maybe most curious product, is from Founders Fund, which is launching a TV-style game show featuring A-list founders and investors playing a fierce game of Mafia. It\u2019s the brainchild of <\/span><strong>Mike Solana<\/strong><span>, the <\/span>Pirate Wires<span> impresario and Founders Fund chief marketing officer. He wants to see if there\u2019s an audience for partners and friends of the firm competing in a deception game.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>They filmed the show a few months back at Tosca Cafe, the fabled North Beach hangout that once served as the setting for the <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.a16z.news\/p\/monitoring-the-situation\">PayPal Mafia<\/a><span> photoshoot in <\/span>Fortune<span>. The players include <\/span><strong>Sam Altman, Bryan Johnson, Dylan Field, Trae Stephens, Palmer Luckey, Ryan Petersen, Cyan Banister, <\/strong><span>and<\/span><strong> Moxie Marlinspike<\/strong><span>. The show will live on YouTube and X.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"youtube2-EDCwQe7P8T0\" data-attrs=\"{&quot;videoId&quot;:&quot;EDCwQe7P8T0&quot;,&quot;startTime&quot;:null,&quot;endTime&quot;:null}\" data-component-name=\"Youtube2ToDOM\" class=\"youtube-wrap\">\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/EDCwQe7P8T0?rel=0&amp;autoplay=0&amp;showinfo=0&amp;enablejsapi=0\" frameborder=\"0\" loading=\"lazy\" gesture=\"media\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen\" allowautoplay=\"true\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" width=\"728\" height=\"409\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span>There\u2019s points for creativity here, especially in a landscape of uninspired VC media efforts. A16z, always claiming to push the envelope with its media plays but ending up with fairly anodyne results, <\/span><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.a16z.news\/p\/monitoring-the-situation\">funded<\/a><span> a knockoff of TBPN called Monitoring the Situation in April. TBPN itself was acquired by OpenAI, which doesn\u2019t suggest fresh creativity is coming.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Beyond that is a bottomless supply of VC podcasts featuring partners and founders recounting their origin stories, lightly discussing industry trends and making some mild predictions.<\/p>\n<p>Solana says he\u2019s over it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m so fucking bored with VC content,\u201d he told us in an interview. \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>Where the VC content effort ends and the Solana passion project begins is debatable here. He\u2019s a big fan of the game, which challenges a group of people \u2014 some mafia members, others townspeople \u2014 to suss out which is which. He said he began playing it in college and brought it with him to Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n<p>Since then it\u2019s become something of an underground scene in the tech world \u2014 a poker circuit for the ruthless, performative and yes, a little dorky. These days it\u2019s rare to find any conference featuring a critical mass of the founder\/VC class that doesn\u2019t have a Mafia game going on one night.<\/p>\n<p><span>(For those wondering, Solana said <\/span><strong>Peter Thiel<\/strong><span> has played but had a rough go of it. \u201cEveryone tried to kill him immediately because they were terrified of him,\u201d Solana said. \u201cIt is exactly confirmation of his fears of group dynamics. He was immediately witch-burned.\u201d)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The game at Tosca featured a slew of founders in the firm\u2019s broader network \u2014 Flexport, Anduril, Figma, and OpenAI are all portfolio companies. Stephens is a partner. Banister was formerly one. Others like Johnson, Marlinspike, podcaster and poker player <\/span><strong>Liv Boeree,<\/strong><span> and bio-hacker <\/span><strong>Josie Zayner<\/strong><span> are Solana\u2019s friends.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>As the game progressed, you could see elements of what makes some of these people successful start to emerge. Altman, who <\/span><strong>Paul Graham <\/strong><span>famously anointed the inevitable king of the cannibals, tried to slyly deconstruct other people\u2019s deflections in order to suss out the mafia members. He was killed off early in the first game, but walking back to the loser\u2019s lounge had correctly deduced who the mafia members were.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Marlinspike and Stephens were standouts, quickly taking control of the conversation and directing lines of inquiries away from themselves.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome people have really obvious \u201ctells\u201d, some people have crazy strategies that I\u2019ve never seen before, and some people kind of \u201cwilt\u201d in ways I wouldn\u2019t have expected them to,\u201d Stephens later said in an email.<\/p>\n<p>Mafia can be fun to play. But is it good content? The show was hard to follow at times, and absent truly memorable characters \u2014 or, let\u2019s be honest, real celebrities \u2014 it\u2019s hard to know how enjoyable it will be to watch if it isn\u2019t your friends playing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.newcomer.co \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Given the state of legacy media these days \u2014 talk shows cancelled, a venerated investigative news series in turmoil \u2014 you\u2019d think VC firms would want little to do with the industry of creating content. But the lure of making old-school TV is just too strong for Silicon Valley to resist. The latest, and maybe [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2446266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2446265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Founders-Funds-New-Media-Play-Tech-Celebrities-Playing-Mafia.com2Fpublic2Fimages2F3b582172-d1a2-4b57-a980-8f80e.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2446265"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2446267,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446265\/revisions\/2446267"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2446266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2446265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2446265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2446265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}