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Monday through Friday, Marketplace demystifies the digital economy in less than 10 minutes. We look past the hype and ask tough questions about an industry that's constantly changing.

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Bytes: Week in Review — Alphabet takes on debt to pay for AI projects, the social network where humans aren't allowed, and Spotify reports record user growth

This week, we look at Spotify's stellar quarter. Plus, there's a new AI-only social network called Moltbook. But first, Alphabet, parent of Google, went to the debt markets this week, raising tens of billions of dollars to fund its AI spending. One of the bonds Alphabet is offering, issued in British pounds, has a maturity date of 100 years from now. This is very unusual in the corporate world. Marketplace’s Stephanie Hughes spoke with Jewel Burks Solomon, managing partner at Collab Capital, about what she makes of Alphabet doing this kind of borrowing.

14 min
−1 D

Crypto’s big growth on the books and in the shadows

Cryptocurrency is being used more frequently in illegal transactions — about $158 billion was used in illicit crypto activity last year. That’s an all-time high, according to a new report from the startup TRM Labs. This comes as the overall crypto ecosystem is growing and, it should be said, legitimate uses of crypto are growing at a faster rate than illegitimate ones. Marketplace’s Stephanie Hughes spoke with Ari Redbord, global head of policy at TRM Labs and one of the authors of the new report, to learn more.

11 min
−2 D

Is the moon (and its resources) up for grabs?

NASA’s Artemis II mission, which will send humans around the moon for the first time in over five decades, could launch as early as March. This is part of a larger campaign to establish a long-term presence on the moon and eventually prepare for human space flight to Mars. Meanwhile, China also has a goal of landing humans on the moon by 2030, setting up a kind of modern space race. One reason for the rush: It's like a game of finders keepers, said Saadia Pekkanen, a professor focused on space law and policy at the University of Washington.

7 min
−3 D

TPU? GPU? What's the difference between these two chips used for AI?

Graphics processing units (GPUs) have become the most important commodity in the AI boom — and have made Nvidia a multi-trillion dollar company. But the tensor processing unit (TPU) could present itself as competition for the GPU. TPUs are developed by Google specifically for AI workloads. And so far, Anthropic, OpenAI and Meta have reportedly made deals for Google’s TPUs. Christopher Miller, historian at Tufts University and author of "Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology," explains what this could mean.

6 min
−4 D

New study reveals a "smartphone penalty" that distorts survey results

According to surveys by the FINRA Foundation, our knowledge of personal finance here in the U.S. went down by 15% between 2009 and 2021. But what if it actually didn't? What if the technology we use to answer the questions is now getting in the way? In 2021, over half of all respondents used a smartphone to fill out the survey. In 2009, none of them used one, according to data from FINRA’s National Financial Capability Study. A new working paper finds that when people use smartphones for surveys they're more likely to respond with the wrong answer or say they don't know. Marketplace’s Stephanie Hughes spoke with Montana State University economics professor Carly Urban, one of the authors of the paper, to learn more.

10 min
6 FEB.

Bytes: Week in Review - SpaceX and xAI merge, Nvidia and OpenAI's funding relationship and U.S. TikTok's rough start

On this week’s “Marketplace Tech Bytes: Week in Review,” we take a look at Nvidia's changing investment relationship with OpenAI. Plus, a stormy start for the new U.S. version of TikTok. But first, SpaceX, one of the world’s largest rocket companies, announced this week that it’s buying xAI, a two-and-half-year-old artificial intelligence startup. Both companies are controlled by Elon Musk. The new company is reportedly valued at $1.25 trillion. It means the chatbot Grok, the satellite internet company Starlink, and the social media firm X are all going to co-exist under the same rocket hangar. Marketplace’s Stephanie Hughes spoke with Paresh Dave, senior writer at Wired, about what adding these companies together equals.

10 min
5 FEB.

Is social media addictive? And are social media companies liable?

A landmark lawsuit that accuses social media companies of intentionally designing their platforms to be addictive — and causing harm to children and teenagers' mental health — is in court this week in Los Angeles. The defendants in this case are Meta and YouTube, both of which dispute the allegations. Snap and TikTok both settled in advance of the trial. Some are calling this social media's "Big Tobacco" moment. Eric Goldman, co-director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University, discusses this as well as a series of lawsuits against the social media giants.

8 min
4 FEB.

What AI fitness apps can and can't do — for now

You can get a pretty good workout plan from a chatbot, but the tech is also being incorporated into all kinds of existing fitness apps, from Apple's Workout Buddy, which motivates you through earbuds, to the Fitbit AI health coach, to Peloton's AI-enabled camera that tracks your form. Nicole Nguyen, personal tech columnist at The Wall Street Journal, gave some of the most popular ones a spin. She spoke with “Marketplace Tech” host Meghan McCarty Carino about her experience.

8 min

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Kimberly Adams

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Stephanie Hughes

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Paresh Dave

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Eric Goldman

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Nicole Nguyen

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Meghan McCarty Carino

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David A Kirsch

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Brent Goldfarb

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Colin Campbell

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Casey Newton

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Monday through Friday, Marketplace demystifies the digital economy in less than 10 minutes. We look past the hype and ask tough questions about an industry that's constantly changing.