15 episodes

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.

Better Offline Cool Zone Media

    • Technology
    • 3.9 • 20 Ratings

Listen on Apple Podcasts
Requires subscription and macOS 11.4 or higher

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.

Listen on Apple Podcasts
Requires subscription and macOS 11.4 or higher

    The Cult of Failing Upwards

    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.

    • 38 min
    The Man That Destroyed Google Search

    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.

    • 30 min
    How Managers Are Breaking The Internet

    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.

    • 34 min
    How A Chinese Glycine Manufacturer Went Viral ft. Louise Matsakis and Tianyu Fang

    How A Chinese Glycine Manufacturer Went Viral ft. Louise Matsakis and Tianyu Fang

    In the last few weeks TikTok and other social networks have been flooded with memes about a chinese glycine manufacturer called Donghua Jinlong, all thanks to one innocent promotional video. Ed Zitron is joined by journalist Louise Matsakis and writer/researcher Tianyu Fang to talk about why young people are talking about glycine. Read more of Louise's work at https://youmayalsolike.beehiiv.com/ and you can find Tianyu at https://twitter.com/tianyuf 
    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    • 36 min
    The AI Bubble Is Bursting

    The AI Bubble Is Bursting

    Every major tech firm is betting billions of dollars that the generative AI revolution will change society - yet when you look under the hood, the reality of generative AI might be far grimmer. Ed Zitron walks you through the many signs that we're on the verge of the AI bubble popping - and what the consequences might be if it does.
    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    • 47 min
    Are We At Peak AI?

    Are We At Peak AI?

    It’s been just under a year and a half since ChatGPT - an AI-powered chatbot launched by so-called non-profit OpenAI - ushered in a new era of investor and media hype around how artificial intelligence would change the world. But what if this we're actually at the peak of what generative AI can do? In this episode, Ed Zitron walks you through the four intractable problems that are stopping Large Language Models like ChatGPT in their tracks - and why they're all-but-impossible to overcome.
    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    • 30 min

Customer Reviews

3.9 out of 5
20 Ratings

20 Ratings

emmerrrrrrrrrr ,

Refreshing, important and much-needed

Ignore the negative reviews on this page - yes there are ads, but you know to expect that with iHeartRadio and indeed erm, oh yes, every podcast ever.

This podcast puts a voice to the frustrations we all feel about being forced to live in an always-on, always-connected world with EVER-WORSENING PRODUCTS. I find myself nodding along with the analysis - one which I don’t find in many mainstream places - and shaking my head at the background behind a lot of this stuff. This is a vital podcast and these are things which need to be said and HEARD.

So, thank you.

foobar9000 ,

No original content

Just a bland and unoriginal summary of the current skeptical arguments against tech, delivered by someone pretending to get angry about everything with some kind of caricature cockney accent meant to be distinctive and funny. The whole thing is of course packed with 2-minute ad breaks every 5 minutes.
Avoid.

Swidbert R. Ott ,

Too many ads, content too thin

The quality does not justify the ads : content ratio.

Top Podcasts In Technology

Lex Fridman Podcast
Lex Fridman
Acquired
Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal
Hard Fork
The New York Times
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
All-In Podcast, LLC
The Gatekeepers
BBC Radio 4
Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career
Lenny Rachitsky

You Might Also Like

It Could Happen Here
Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts
Behind the Bastards
Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts
Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff
Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts
Some More News
SomeMoreNews | PodcastOne
Hood Politics with Prop
Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts
Knowledge Fight
Knowledge Fight