People vs Algorithms

This week, we discuss why the AI safety narrative is shifting from doomerism to the risk of AI eliminating both companies’ and individuals’ alphas, or what makes them unique and confers on them an advantage over the rest of the crowd. For companies, that means assessing whether to trust big AI companies with their proprietary data, and for individuals it means not outsourcing critical thought to a...

We dig into the tangled collision of journalism and the creatory economy. Emily Sundberg’s Zuckerberg interview, Brian’s christening as the Matt Belloni-of-advertising , and why guys like Scott Galloway and Gary Vaynerchuk get a pass to cash in while "real journalists" get side-eyed for it. We also unpack AI's creeping presence in music and writing — can you love an AI song, what happens to "provi...

This week’s episode leans heavily into Cannes, which is a world where everyone is selling and many are lying. Creators are the cool kids of Cannes, while the site of a drone show by a mobile ad network is considered normal. Plus: Ana Andjelic on what makes A24 unique. * Watch us on YouTube * Troy Young’s People vs Algorithms newsletter * Brian Morrissey’s The Rebooting newsletter * Alex Schleifer’...

We debate whether Anthropic painted itself in a corner with its safety messaging, if Snap Specs pass the taste test, Elon as American icon, and the World Cup and Trump’s UFC fight showcasing the profound weirdness and contradictions at the heart of the American experience. Plus: Anonymous Banker on why Fox paying $22 billion for Roku makes sense and Troy says someone will buy Semafor. * Watch us o...

Seen one way, AI has democratized the creative process. Seen another, we are swimming in a sea of mediocrity that inevitably crowds out attention to human-led creativity. Plus: Handicapping Hot AI IPO Summer, YouTubers as Hollywood's saviors, GLP-1s vs impulse manipulators and Breaker's Lachlan Cartwright on assesses the characters in the 60 Minutes dram that’s like Viagra for media newsletters. F...

ChatGPT is advertising it as a souped-up Clippy to help with date-night recipes and sibling road trips. What happened to superintelligence and curing cancer? Disruptive forces always invite pushback, as Bari Weiss is learning at CBS. In PvA OT: Anonymous Banker on People Inc's AI-hedge with MGM and why YouTube ecosystem events are far better than typical media events. * Ballgame * Watch us on YouT...

We debate the commodification of the human experience, why the upside-down token economics is a more pressing near-term concern, the religious zeal behind SpaceX's valuation, and why HR is the new boogeywoman of the aggrieved and powerful. Plus: Ana Andjelic on why not carrying a phone and having a personal philosopher are new luxury status symbols. * Watch us on YouTube * Troy Young’s People vs A...

This week, we discuss the chaotic transition to an AI-augmented era, the roiling backlash trying to slow it down, and how we’ll come to terms with a weird new world. Plus: The dénouement of the scale era in publishing and beginning of the “inversion” era of media brands. * Watch us on YouTube * Troy Young’s People vs Algorithms newsletter * Brian Morrissey’s The Rebooting newsletter * Alex Schleif...

Meanwhile, Anthropic is on a $50 billion run rate and raising at a $900b valuation. We look back to the dawn of the assembly line, when workers suffered from “Forditis," a condition of despair caused by a lack of agency and the pressure to keep up with a pace set by machines. Plus: learning from Ferrari, Ryan Cohen's use of the information space for his long-shot takeover bid for eBay, the decline...

While some of this is cover for overhiring during the ZIRP era, there's clearly a move to cut the "coordination tax" that exists within companies. And what starts in tech always moves downstream. Plus: Ted Turner and the end of the media mogul archetype, James Murdoch's move to buy Vox Media's podcast network and New York magazine, and how to tell fake fakes from real fakes at the souk. * Watch us...

This week we dig into how the clip has become the unit of cultural currency and whether it's creating a mass delusion about what people actually want and what is popular. Also: a Waymo hostage situation, a vibe-coded group-texting platform, Apple vs. the interface doomers, Uber's super app survival play, Ben Sasse's deathbed honesty about young people's anxiety, and what the rise of Graham Platner...

Troy’s vibe coding project has moved into high gear, as institutional and personal memory becomes the point of leverage with media’s ultimate goal shifting to how to get the right people in the saloon. Claude Design and GPT-Image 2 reinforce the same message: You’re either high-end craftsman or you’re orchestrating AI systems, like it or not. Plus: Tim Cook hands over the CEO reigns after Apple’s...

Troy unveils his vibe-coded media system that produces a daily briefing based on his entire media diet, underpinned with a memory layer that acts as a second brain of PvA thinking. This would turn media from a game of speed to one of accumulated worldview. We also unpack the rise of fakes, from the clip economy to Allbirds pivot to AI; handicap the Pope vs Trump battle; and get a report from an in...

B2B is a refuge; see the Acquired ad rates. The Boston Globe's TikTok star Emily Sweeney proves a Dorchester accent is leverage when the internet has flattened everything. The next newsroom brawl will be over AI use. Political figures now have to be expert content creators. Even geopolitics aren't immune: Iran is beating the U.S. with its AI Lego video trolling. In tech, Sam Altman lies a lot and...

Troy and Brian react to OpenAI buying TBPN: It pays to have viewpoints and approaches that are preferred by the powerful. FeedMe's Emily Sundberg joins as a guest this week. We discuss why new media like TBPN is beating legacy media not by distribution hacks or aesthetics but in energy. Legacy media relies on structural energy that’s dissipated while new media is built on earned energy, which is m...

OpenAI is pivoting to the enterprise, Kentucky farmers are modern folk heroes by not selling their land for a datacenter, and Meta and YouTube get the Big Tobacco treatment. Plus: Troy gives a progress report on his vibe coded Personal Intelligence Media Platform, AB’s take on Vox Media’s podcast business and MarketBeat’s profitable fin-pub hustle, and Wired’s reinvention as a Big Tech critic. * W...

But physiotherapists still use accountants, dentists are in great shape and our own vibe coding experiments run into snags. Plus: The return of Travis Kalanick and the Mount Rushmore of tech titans, Google Stitch, who lost BuzzFeed, The Trade Desk’s woes, the Oscars as reflective of the end of the old Hollywood model, why The Economist is catnip for billionaires, and why mass layoffs and rapid reh...

YouTube became a $550 billion juggernaut by building the infrastructure: the algorithm, the ad stack, the creator revenue share, the living room app. It spent more on content than almost anyone else without producing it. Meanwhile, legacy media companies that bet everything on premium content are pivoting to events, harvesting their websites for ad yield, and watching their audiences migrate to pl...

Block’s 40% employee purge says more about Jack Dorsey’s CEO skills than AI. David Zaslav gets only a PE golf clap for making Warner Bros shareholders money. McDonald’s CEO becomes a symbol of out-of-touch financializers. But hope is on the way as Cal AI’s teenage founders bootstrapped their way to riches. * Watch us on YouTube * Troy Young’s People vs Algorithms newsletter * Brian Morrissey’s The...

Data shows widespread trepidation over the AI, whether it’s datacenter construction or possible job displacement, yet little public discussion has taken place. We discuss how that’s changing as AI becomes a political issue. Meanwhile, another reckoning is happening with a return of cancel culture in a new and improved version; the open web faces its own reckoning as grotesque user experiences lead...

They unpack the "orality thesis" and what the shift from written to spoken culture means for how we think, communicate, and vote. On the media side, they map out what's actually working right now: audience-first elite brands, B2B trojan horses like Hearst, expert creator newsletters, and the relentless pull of performance marketing, and AI-generated monkey content on YouTube. Plus: a report from t...

The age of AI is off to a shambolic start. Anthropic and OpenAI ran Super Bowl ads that fell flat. The gap is widening between the AI-pilled true believers and the Normals, as AI becomes yet another existential anxiety. Plus: Alex breaks down the design systems deployed by Trump vs Mamdani, and Troy says The Washington Post has a product problem. * Watch us on YouTube * Troy Young’s People vs Algo...

Meanwhile, brands are facing reputational crises from their ties to the government as Scott Galloway calls for a boycott of companies who sell their products to ICE. Jeff Bezos’ well-earned reputation as a business genius is at risk as his 13-year tenure owning The Washington Post turns into an unmitigated disaster. Meanwhile, Anthropic wants to develop a high-minded reputation by dinging OpenAI f...

Today’s mind control comes in the form of black-box algorithmic recommendation systems, autonomous robotics and agentic AI systems. The trust gap has arrived for algorithms, as seen by the backlash against TikTok's new ownership. Maybe we're hard wired to distrust men in masks. Plus: CBS News tries to “podcast-ify” a legacy network, the Atlantic’s successful pivot to subscriptions and talent, the...

This week, like old Italian men with their hands clasped behind their backs at construction sites, we are monitoring various situations: Snowmageddon 2026, OpenAI’s inevitable embrace of advertising, Claude Code’s escape from the nerdery, why publishers are embracing prediction markets, the Davos divide between the Mark Carney and Donald Trump styles of communication, and the latest reminder that...