18 episodes
Better Offline Cool Zone Media
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- Technology
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4.4 • 34 Ratings
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Better Offline is a weekly show exploring the tech industry’s influence and manipulation of society - and interrogating the growth-at-all-costs future that tech’s elite wants to build.
Combining narrative-form storytelling, one-on-one interviews and panel-based discussions, Better Offline cuts through the buzzwords and obfuscation of the tech industry, investigating and evaluating the schemes and scams of everyone from cryptocurrency scumbags to the greediest of the venture capital elite. Tech industry veteran Ed Zitron and a dynamic coterie of guests will help listeners understand the who, how and why of how tech’s most powerful players are changing the world - for better or for worse.
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How Mark Zuckerberg Deliberately Made Facebook Worse
In the last decade, Mark Zuckerberg and his internal growth team have repeatedly and intentionally made Facebook and Instagram harder and more dangerous to use in the pursuit of perpetual growth, and in this episode, Ed Zitron walks you through multiple horrifying insider stories about Facebook's disgusting approach to user happiness.
LINK for documents: https://www.wheresyoured.at/killingfacebook/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. -
OpenAI's Video Generating AI Is Dead On Arrival
Earlier in the year, OpenAI debuted Sora, an AI that can generate videos that almost look realistic. In this episode, Ed walks through why generating video with AI is a near-impossible task, and speaks with Walter Woodman of Shy Kids, who made a movie called "Air Head" using the tool. LINKS: Shy Kids' Air Head - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4wJ4WeJrz4 Mira Murati Interview with Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/video/series/joanna-stern-personal-technology/openai-made-me-crazy-videosthen-the-cto-answered-most-of-my-questions/C2188768-D570-4456-8574-9941D4F9D7E2
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. -
Enron Musk Ft. Ed Niedermeyer
On April 26 2024, the NHTSA, the government body responsible for keeping roads safe, found Tesla's Autopilot and Full-Self-Driving software created a "critical safety gap" with drivers, killing and injuring people in the process, in the very same week that Elon Musk fired most of Tesla's team behind their Supercharger electric vehicle charging moment. Ed Zitron brings on E.W. Niedermeyer, author of Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors, to explain exactly what the hell is going on.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. -
The Cult of Failing Upwards
Ed Zitron walks you through how career manager Adam Mosseri pushed out Instagram's original founders, turning it into an ultra-profitable app that barely works, and how Sam Altman, the so-called hero of the AI boom, is a lobbyist dressed as a technologist best-known for being an absent, self-obsessed demagogue.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. -
The Man That Destroyed Google Search
In this episode, Ed Zitron tells you the disgraceful story of how Prabhakar Raghavan, Google's former head of ads - led a coup so that he could run Google Search, and how an email chain from 2019 began a cascade of events that would lead to the outright decay of the most important website on the internet.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. -
How Managers Are Breaking The Internet
The growth-at-all-costs management consultant mindset has turned most of the modern internet into a painful and profitable social experiment - and in this episode, Ed Zitron walks you through how these disconnected, growth-hungry personalities have made Google and Meta abdicate any responsibility toward their users and products.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Customer Reviews
Good podcast
Another excellent show from Cool Zone! Interesting subject, good guests, knowledgeable host. (Accent is a little grating, but likely not his fault.)
Lots to Work With
I appreciate the critical approach to tech coverage and the host seems well versed on the topic. But he speaks in the cadence of a conservative talking head. He imbues everything with personal insults and moralism. A blow hard is a blow hard regardless of their point.
Ed’s soap box
I feel like I’m the target audience for this sort of thing but I find it hard to stomach.
Look Ed, I get it the tech companies are vampires. You don’t gotta convince me of that, but your rants go on and on while providing no solid demonstrations of their actions.
Yes they do destroy companies - give me some examples please! Give me some sort of information. It feels like it’s just a repeat of my Bluesky feed.
Just be a little less snarky man. I mean, I get it, I GET IT! But it’s my least favorite part of the show and grates on me. I was hoping for something more informative instead of being ranted at.
But that’s just me.
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