What do a $500B AI valuation, mid‑match game ads, and a driverless traffic stop have in common? They all expose the gap between shiny innovation and the infrastructure, policy, and psychology that actually make tech work—or break trust. We open with OpenAI’s eye‑popping valuation and go beneath the headline to the parts no press release glamorizes: data centers, power, cooling, fiber, and GPU supply. With partners like Nvidia, Oracle, and Microsoft shaping access, we unpack why AI will likely consolidate around a few players and what that means for startups burning cash on compute. From there, we challenge the classic “my phone is listening” myth. Instagram’s chief says no, and we explain why your ads still feel psychic: cross‑app tracking, pixels, cookies, SDKs, and identity graphs that stitch your behavior together better than a hot mic ever could. Snapchat’s move to charge for Memories over 5 GB hits a nerve. We talk about the end of “free forever,” how to export your data cleanly, and why local storage and physical media are making a quiet comeback as people hedge against shifting terms. Then the wild card: a free, ad‑supported tier for cloud gaming. We explore how interrupting live sessions could nudge upgrades—or kill trust—and what smart implementations might look like if Microsoft wants to keep gamers loyal. A quick detour into our favorite segment, Two Truths and a Lie, proves once again that “too dumb to be real” is no longer a safe bet. The Tech Fail may be the most telling: California police stop a Waymo for an illegal U‑turn and have no one to ticket. It’s funny, but it’s a governance problem—who’s liable when there’s no driver? We argue for clear frameworks before edge cases become norms. And for sports fans, we dig into automated ball‑strike challenges moving toward the majors, weighing precision against the theater of human officiating, and drawing parallels to football’s quiet shift away from chains to computer measurement. Along the way, Mike breaks down how modern marketing leans on cognitive biases more than secret microphones, and we wrap with a blind bourbon upset that proves labels fool palates as easily as hype fools markets. If you care about AI, privacy, gaming, autonomy, or the future of sports tech, this one’s packed. If you enjoyed this, follow and subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review—what shift are you most ready for: fewer AI players, fewer ads, or fewer bad calls? Support the show