688: Why, Combinator?
Grumpy Old Geeks
Jason DeFillippo & Brian Schulmeister with Dave Bittner
4.8 • 6.1K Ratings
🗓️ 14 March 2025
⏱️ 85 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Pi Day gets its due; Y Combinator marks 20 years of “disruption”; Americans lose $12.5B to scams thanks to AI and social media; Deliveroo posts a profit but still tanks on Wall Street; Twitter’s security remains a joke; Pinterest steals user content for AI; and a rogue developer gets busted for a kill switch scheme. Severance Season 2 costs $20M per episode; Ted Lasso returns despite ending; Waymo’s driverless taxis rack up parking tickets; and Apple plans to turn AirPods into live translators. Meanwhile, the FCC launches a National Security Council, the U.S. housing agency flirts with crypto, and hermit crabs show better teamwork than Big Tech.
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Show notes at https://gog.show/688
FOLLOW UP
The Man Behind The American Oligarchy
IN THE NEWS
Deliveroo turns first annual profit
FTC says Americans lost $12.5B to scams last year
Consumer Reports finds popular voice cloning tools lack safeguards
The FCC is creating a new Council for National Security within the agency
DOGE axes CISA ‘red team’ staffers amid ongoing federal cuts
Judge Calls DOGE Firings a ‘Sham,
20 Plagues Y Combinator Unleashed on the World Over the Last 20 Years
‘We Are Witnessing a New Brain Drain’ as Scientists Flee America for France
Elon Musk claims bad actors in Ukraine are behind “massive“ X cyberattack
The Real Reason Twitter Went Down
Developer convicted for “kill switch” code
Pinterest to Train AI Models on User Content
U.S. Housing Agency Considers Launching Crypto Experiment
Waymo was slapped with nearly 600 parking tickets
MEDIA CANDY
Somehow, Severance season 2 cost an enormous $20 million per episode
Eddy Cue and Ben Stiller interview each other about Severance
Black Mirror: Season 7 | Official Trailer
Ted Lasso Returning for Season 4
Apple Music Classical expands to the web
Aphex Twin Curates a Massive 191-Song Playlist
Playlist - Music selected by Aphex Twin for Supreme.
Matt Pinfield Comes Out of a Coma After Suffering Massive Stroke
APPS & DOODADS
AudioShake Launches Breakthrough AI Model to Separate Overlapping Voices
Apple reportedly plans to add a live-translation feature to AirPods
'Don't let your kids be on Roblox', Roblox CEO tells parents
AT THE LIBRARY
Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams
Meta is trying to silence a former executive
THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE
Hermit Crabs: Conga Line Cooperation
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Grumpy Old Geeks, a weekly talk show hosted by Brian Schulmeister and Jason DeFilippo, discussing the finer points of what went wrong on the internet and who's to blame. |
| 0:16.3 | Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks. I'm Jason DeFilippo. |
| 0:18.9 | And I'm Brian Schomeister. Jason, I am back for my Canadian adventure. |
| 0:23.3 | Okay. I thought that was every day since you live in Canada. I do live in Toronto, yes. But we had a March break and we decided to go on a Canadian trip, a road trip, went to drove up to Ottawa, capital of Canada, and then went up to Quebec City, capital of |
| 0:39.7 | Quebec, one of the provinces of soon to be 51st state, then drove down to Montreal, also in |
| 0:46.8 | Quebec, and then came home. And I'm only relaying this information because, A, it was fun, |
| 0:52.3 | B, Canada's beautiful, C, absolutely does not want to be a state or really fucking pissed off at the president. |
| 0:59.0 | Not just the president, also Elon. |
| 1:01.9 | Yeah. |
| 1:02.4 | And just kind of the general zeitgeist. |
| 1:04.2 | I saw Punch Nazis spray painted all over places. |
| 1:08.4 | Fuck Elon spray painted all over the place. Quite. Spray painted all over the place. |
| 1:12.5 | Quite a few people have Teslas. |
| 1:15.1 | Snowballs were being thrown at them. |
| 1:16.7 | Okay. |
| 1:17.1 | Now, here's a question. |
| 1:18.5 | Yes. |
| 1:18.7 | This is a legitimate question. |
| 1:20.5 | When they spray paint fuck Elon, do they have to spray painted in English and French at the |
| 1:25.5 | same time, or do they get a ticket? |
| 1:27.2 | Well, they would probably get a ticket in Quebec. Actually, it's French first. So if they did not |
| 1:31.7 | do it French first, they would be in trouble. Yes. Quebecua. Yeah, Quebecua. It was wonderful, |
... |
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