Down Round

An anti-woke bank, a conservative safe-space for the desperate and dateless, a censorship-proof YouTube and a free speech Twitter. We check in on right-wing tech. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit downround.substack.com/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Google. You know it as a search engine, an email provider,  a cloud hosting service, a mobile operating system, a friend. But did you know that Google is also a killer ? Join us on a spooky pre-Halloween journey into the many products Google has unceremoniously killed before their time. Links Google Is Killing Stadia, And Refunding Every Purchase Ever Made - Forbes Killed by Google This is a publi...

As part of the ongoing ' Does Elon Have to Buy Twitter?' drama a court has ordered the messages between Elon and many wealthy business leaders and VCs to be made public. It's a treasure trove. Leave us a review if you have something to say... This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit downround.substack.com/subscribe See om...

The relationship between frictionless payment, recreational drugs and attempting to find a greater purpose. Silicon Valley's weird relationship with drugs.  This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit downround.substack.com/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Saudi Arabia is building the city of the future which includes a 250 metre wide, 500 meter tall and 170km long vertical city. It's supposed to be ready in 8 years time. How's it looking? On track, we bet. Links : MBS’s $500 Billion Desert Dream Just Keeps Getting Weirder - Bloomberg This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visi...

Have the grand promises of Uber come to pass? Or are we living in an endless nightmare from which we might never wake, endlessly begging from a release that surely never to come? No? Just us? OK. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit downround.substack.com/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Adobe has announced it will acquire the much-loved design platform Figma. What does it all mean, and why does everyone hate Adobe so much? Down Round investigates. (By which we mean we discussed it, with no investigation or reporting whatsoever.) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit downround.substack.com/subscribe Se...

You asked for a longer episode, and now we've delivered. We are joined by the Mark Di Stefano of the AFR – and formerly of BuzzFeed and The Information – who dispensed the dirt on Amazon for longer than our usual 15-20 minutes. Are you happy now? This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit downround.substack.com/subscribe Se...

Is AI generated art going to put every graphic designer, writer and podcaster out of a job and win every small town local fete art competition?  DALL-E, MidJourney, Stable Diffusion et al. Where Does Alex Jones Go From Here? By Charlie Warzel This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit downround.substack.com/subscribe See om...

OnlyFans, the adult content platform that has become a cultural force, made a lot of money last year. So you can understand why Twitter wanted a slice of that pie. Right? Right? What happened next? Listen and find out. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit downround.substack.com/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener fo...

A scheduling hitch leaves Raph and James unprepared, but little did they know, they'd been preparing for this episode their whole lives... Instead of going deep on one topic, we touch on 7 things that are broken on the internet/in the tech we use every day. Introducing, The Rant Zone. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, vi...

The crypto world is in a tizz about the biggest change to Ethereum since it launched. Will Ethereum moving from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake be a black swan disaster event, or the beginning of a new global blockchain reality? Well, we know two guys who are ready and willing to pontificate baselessly on that very question. (Hint: it's us.) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this...

A whistleblower complaint by renowned hacker Mudge gives us a peek behind the curtain at the alleged shitshow that is Twitter Inc. Photo of Mudge and Bill Clinton: https://twitter.com/dotMudge/status/1235223136334995457?s=20&t=v0rD3-FAuNEIgUeRP5fttQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3CKgkyc7Qo This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus...

A sad mea culpa on Adam Neumann, then we talk the latest Metaverse happenings. Raph immersed himself in Decentraland, James immersed himself in Matthew Ball's new book, The Metaverse: And How it Will Revolutionize Everything. They both report back. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit downround.substack.com/subscribe...

How did kickboxing champion, manosphere influencer and general ne'er-do-well Andrew Tate hack the algorithms to appear in everyone's feed and become the world's most Googled person? And what the heck does it mean? This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit downround.substack.com/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for pri...

Tornado Cash is a decentralised "mixer" that allows users to obscure their crypto transactions. It's been sanctioned by the US government, who say it is used to launder money. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit downround.substack.com/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Adam Neumann, the man who set $40 billion on fire during the WeWork IPO debacle, is back – and he's just been given $350 million for another crack. Links – Flowcarbon "Lite Paper" - FT: WeWork’s Adam Neumann on investing, startups, surfing and Masayoshi Son This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit downround.substack.com/s...

BeReal: The hot new social media craze touts itself as the antithesis of Instagram. But one thing Instagram does is actually make money. Can BeReal reject the tried-and-true path of extracting value from its users while turning a profit? James and Raph discuss. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit downround.substack.c...

Visa and Mastercard have both stopped offering their payment processing services to MindGeek, the shadowy conglomerate behind some of the internet's most visited sites – including, but not limited to, YouPorn, Pornhub, RedTube and Brazzers. What's all this then? Links: MindGeek: the secretive owner of Pornhub and RedTube – Financial Times Visa and Mastercard suspend payments for ad purchases on Po...

James Hennessy and Raph Dixon on the intersection of technology, business and culture. This week, after a quick update on the rollercoaster at Instagram since our last episode, we discuss the golden-child of the blockchain: Helium. According to crypto-utopians (including, somehow, the New York Times) Helium provides an obvious use case for crypto outside of buying drugs and evading financial regul...

Snap and Twitter stocks plummet, Facebook is in a tizz, social media is being redefined – and it's all Apple and TikTok's fault. Join James JR Hennessy and Raph Dixon at the intersection of business, tech and culture. Subscribe to James' Substack here: https://www.theterminal.info/ More about The Meeting Tree here: https://themeetingtree.com This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this...