Blocking AI crawlers to save the internet, with Cloudflare’s Matthew Prince

Masters of Scale

WaitWhat

Entrepreneurship, Business, Management, Reid Hoffman, Mindset, Diversity & Inclusion, Jeff Berman, Bob Safian, Startups

4.6 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 29 July 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Cloudflare recently made headlines with breakthrough technology that stops AI companies from scraping online content with impunity. That’s major impact, since the company is involved in more than 20 percent of all online traffic. Cloudflare co-founder and CEO Matthew Prince joins Rapid Response to share how the new tools are poised to dramatically impact AI firms, publishers, and the future of the internet. Prince also takes listeners inside the state of cyberwarfare in the age of AI, and why Trump’s immigration policy could erode US business dominance for years to come.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey listeners, we're launching a new Masters of Scale survey, and we'd love your input.
0:06.5	Your feedback will help us get to know you, our audience, and create content that better meets your wants and needs.
0:13.8	Go to Mastersofscale.com slash Survey 25 to weigh in.
0:18.5	Again, go to Mastersofscale.com slash survey 25 to give your feedback.
0:25.4	Is your AI built for everyone, or is it built to work with your businesses' data?
0:31.0	IBM helps you integrate and govern unstructured data wherever it lives, so your business can
0:36.3	have more accurate AI instead of just more of it.
0:39.7	Get your data ready for AI at IBM.com, the AI built for business. IBM.
0:47.4	We go to war every day with Russian hackers, Iranian hackers, North Korean hackers, Chinese hackers, who are trying to
0:56.3	get in and thwart our systems and get around it in various ways.
1:00.0	The AI companies are a piece of cake in terms of blocking from this, the real hackers that
1:07.7	are out there.
1:11.2	That's Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare,
1:14.7	the $60 billion tech firm that facilitates more than 20% of all online traffic.
1:20.7	Cloudflare just released a buzzing new tool that blocks AI crawlers from scraping content from websites. I wanted to talk to Matthew
1:29.7	because Cloudflare's tool could have dramatic impact on AI firms, on news and content sites,
1:36.8	and on the future of the internet. Plus, he has an insider's view on the state of cyber
1:41.9	warfare right now in the age of AI. So let's get to it. I'm Bob Safian,
1:48.1	and this is Rapid Response. I'm Bob Safian. I'm here with Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare.
1:58.1	Matthew, thanks for being here. Thanks for joining us.
2:01.5	Really appreciate having me on.
2:03.6	So I have to say, what Cloudflare does an internet infrastructure provider,
	...

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