Who is lying? This top venture capital firm gathered Altman and these Silicon Valley bigwigs for a real-life "Werewolf" reality show.

If you were to imagine a closed-door gathering of Silicon Valley’s top power players, you’d probably think of artificial intelligence, chip wars, robotics, defense technology, or the next-generation internet. After all, the people in the room are OpenAI founder Sam Altman, military unicorn Anduril founder Palmer Luckey, Figma founder Dylan Field, Signal founder Moxie Marlinspike, and a group of investors who control the flow of hundreds of billions of dollars in capital. But a recent gathering in San Francisco was nothing like that. No one discussed AI models, nor did anyone talk about funding or valuations. Instead, these smartest and most powerful people in Silicon Valley sat around a round table, seriously playing a game of Werewolf. To be precise, it was the American version of Werewolf—Mafia. What’s even more interesting is that this wasn’t a private gathering among friends, but a formally filmed and publicly broadcast reality show. The show is called “MAFIA,” and its producer is Founders Fund, one of Silicon Valley’s most legendary and controversial venture capital institutions. Founders Fund may not be as household a name as Sequoia or Hillhouse, but when you mention the companies it has invested in, its significance becomes immediately apparent: Facebook, SpaceX, Palantir, Stripe, Airbnb, Anduril, and OpenAI have all appeared in its investment portfolio. This investment firm, founded by Peter Thiel and other “PayPal Mafia” members, has participated in nearly every important wave of technology in Silicon Valley over the past twenty years. And now, it’s doing something seemingly unrelated to investing—producing a reality show. Of course, if you simply view “MAFIA” as a reality show for the tech community, you might underestimate Founders Fund’s true intentions. It’s more like a public experiment packaged as entertainment. A Group of Billionaires Obsessed with Mafia The opening of the show is quite surreal. The location is the legendary Tosca Cafe in San Francisco, which once hosted the classic “PayPal Mafia” group photo. (“PayPal Mafia” classic photo refers to a famous team photo in Silicon Valley tech history, taken during early PayPal core member gatherings, later repeatedly referenced as a symbol of these individuals’ enormous impact on subsequent Silicon Valley entrepreneurship.) This time, sitting at the table are the new generation of Silicon Valley’s power core: - Sam Altman (OpenAI founder and CEO) - Palmer Luckey (Anduril Industries founder) - Dylan Field (Figma co-founder and CEO) - Moxie Marlinspike (Signal co-founder) - Bryan Johnson (initiator of the “Don’t Die” project) - Trae Stephens (Founders Fund partner) - Ryan Petersen (Flexport founder and CEO) If you were to add up the market valuations and influence of these individuals’ companies, this table could almost be considered a micro “global tech economy.” But their first task is: close their eyes, kill, and vote. In the view of Founders Fund’s head of marketing, Mike Solana, this seemingly absurd setup is actually a deliberate rebellion against traditional VC content formats. For the past decade or so, the most common storytelling in the tech scene has been founders telling standard life stories on podcasts: a passion for coding, entrepreneurial failures, changing the world. Hear that enough, and everyone starts to sound the same. But Mafia is different. It gives you no prep time, nor does it allow you to package your narrative. You must judge others’ intentions in a very short period, and make decisions under conditions of severe information asymmetry. The behavioral patterns that emerge under this pressure often reveal more of one’s true personality than any interview ever could. Thus, the game essentially becomes a “personality reveal experiment.” Sam Altman dissects everyone’s reasoning as if analyzing an AI model; Palmer Luckey continues his usual playful style, becoming the focus of suspicion just minutes into the game; Signal founder Moxie Marlinspike delivers the show’s most brilliant moment—he changes everyone’s thinking framework with a single sentence. Silicon Valley Bosses at the Card Table From the very first night, the game quickly spins out of control. After Figma founder Dylan Field was “executed” by the Mafia in the first round, the whole situation entered an information vacuum, and everyone began relying on intuition and experience for deduction. AI policy expert Ryan Beiermeister was the first to strike, questioning Trae Stephens and Bryan Johnson’s exaggerated reactions to the news of death, to which Bryan Johnson replied self-deprecatingly, “I’ve watched too many Korean dramas.” As everyone began chattering, Sam Altman spoke up. Relying on extremely calm defense and analytical abilities, he started dissecting others’ statements and arguments. When Signal founder Moxie confidently accused biohacker Josie Zayner of being Mafia, Altman sensed something amiss: “Moxie, as a veteran player, you’re taking a huge risk to accuse a newcomer, which is very interesting... This kind of extremely certain statement feels very 'Mafia.' Moxie, I think you are most like the Mafia.” But this open-carding strategy immediately made him the target. In the third night’s vote, Altman regrettably exited. When the host announced that he was “drawn and quartered” by the townsfolk, the room erupted in laughter. Someone even added, “At least this proves he’s not a super-intelligent AI.” The New Wealth Code of Silicon Valley in the Infotainment Era After the “MAFIA” reality show was launched on YouTube and X, it quickly drew attention in the tech community, with the first episode easily exceeding ten thousand views in a short time. As traditional media gradually declines and some talk shows are suspended, Silicon Valley’s VC tycoons are taking up the content creation baton in a high-profile manner. From a16z’s heavy early investment in media matrices, to OpenAI’s recent acquisition of tech talk show TBPN, and now Founders Fund itself filming an entertainment reality show, the underlying business logic is highly consistent. In this modern society reshaped by social media, the road to power and influence is increasingly paved by “information entertainment” (Infotainment). Whether it’s Bryan Johnson gaining attention online by showcasing his bizarre anti-aging routines, or Elon Musk energizing his business empire with a personal influencer matrix, Silicon Valley’s new generation of elites understand better than anyone— in the Internet era, controlling traffic, shaping narratives, and even skillful performance in public is becoming the core business capital. Though the VC moguls at this long table are playing a game, the elaborate defense, logical reasoning, highly provocative eloquence, and decisive decisions made with limited information that they display are precisely the foundational genes that allow them to succeed in the real business world. Risk warning and disclaimer The market has risks; investment should be prudent. This article does not constitute personal investment advice, nor does it consider any specific user's unique investment objectives, financial situation, or needs. Users should consider whether any opinions, views, or conclusions in this article suit their particular circumstances. Investments made accordingly are at the investor’s own risk.