While the normies were resting, I was mainlining tech discourse all weekend to bring you the latest trends, rumors, fights, and innovations from the sweatiest corners of the internet. This week: Stanford grads walk out on Google CEO Sundar Pichai, a popular X conspiracy theorist is found dead, and Techslop Merch Watch returns to discuss that Reformation email.
This is Manic Monday.
Stanford students takes a stand
Google CEO Sundar Pichai was only one sentence into his commencement speech at Stanford Sunday when several hundred students got up and left the stadium in protest, booing like so many 2026 graduates have booed before them. This time, it wasn’t even about AI, as it had been at University of Central Florida and then at University of Arizona. This weekend’s walkout appeared to be a pro-Palestine demonstration, calling out Google for doing massive business with the Israeli government in recent years. According to SFGate, once the protest died down, Pichai was “largely well-received.” His speech emphasized optimism in the face of anxiety and only gingerly danced around the topic of AI, even referencing the fact that he was advised not to bring it up considering how poorly that had gone for his counterparts. Predictably, the walkout pissed off a lot of crusty old fogies who don’t like when kids are agentic if it’s not in their favor.
How do you do, fellow men?
World’s biggest dweeb Mark Zuckerberg yucked it up with world’s biggest buffoon Donald Trump at the world’s biggest little bitch boy birthday party, aka the UFC fight at the White House Sunday. What do you think they talked about? I bet it was about DIRT and TRUCKS!!!
Techslop Merch Watch: Reformation x SpaceX
This week on Techslop Merch Watch, which is what I’m calling our running list of stupid tech-fashion collabs, a recent Reformation email campaign appeared to be targeting those on their email list who both invested in SpaceX and also still buy Reformation post-private equity roll-up. So, tech workers who love Alfred and play in Volo leagues, or whatever. It’s not a true collab, sure, but it signals the larger merging of the tech and fashion industries, the fruit of which is sure to clog up our landfills and slop-ify our sartorial culture in ways we can’t even imagine.
“I am very confused by this story…”
This is how one Redditor summed up the recent news that a 35-year-old internet poster named Lauren Balik was found dead in Montauk on Friday, sparking some bizarre responses from the tech world that ranged from backhanded condolences to morbid delight. Balik was a prolific poster who sometimes went by the name Steven Balik (although their handle on X and Substack was @laurenbalik). They wrote esoteric posts laden with conspiracy theories about everything from AI to the stock market to sports to mini golf and water slides. They often tweeted directly at tech executives: Last week, they asked Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince to meet up to watch the Knicks game. Balik had beef with at least one Anthropic employee as well as X’s head of product Nikita Bier, which for some reason Bier took ridiculously seriously. After Bier announced he would be dancing on Balik’s grave (classy), many people pointed out that Balik was obviously unwell and maybe Bier shouldn’t take their tweets to heart. Other people pointed out the obvious: When a conspiracy theorist has beef with tech executives and then dies under mysterious circumstances, how can we not theorize that we may be through the looking glass here, people?
Hosts become ghosts
This clip from TBPN, the OpenAI-owned tech talk show that streams on X, has some people a little worried for the hosts. The boys are looking tired. Those vacant stares, those pallid cheeks. They’re worn out and downright beat down! Where are the frat-tastic hype machines we used to know and love? Is this what happens after you sell your meteoric media project to a corporation? Boys, blink twice if you need help.
The week ahead: Anthropologie collabs with Anthropic for their Fable 5 fairytale-inspired ceramic mug set.
