The internet is breaking. So what’s next? with Cloudflare’s Matthew Prince
Masters of Scale
WaitWhat
4.6 • 4.4K Ratings
🗓️ 31 March 2026
⏱️ 38 minutes
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Summary
AI bots are on track to outnumber humans online by 2027. No one has a better line of sight into that shift than Matthew Prince — his company, Cloudflare, routes more than 20% of all internet traffic. Speaking live from SXSW, Prince reveals how AI is rewriting the economics of the web, how tech giants are scrambling to respond, and what it means for anyone running an online business. Plus, what it's like to be on the frontlines of Iranian cyberwarfare, and why Prince made the unexpected move to buy a local Utah newspaper.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | On Masters of Scale, we talk a lot about inflection points, those moments when a technology stops being optional and starts being fundamental. |
| 0:10.7 | AI presents one of those moments, and behind every breakthrough, whether it's medical research or education or even cinematic visual effects, there's infrastructure most people never see. As the |
| 0:24.0 | essential cloud for AI, core weave is building that foundation. It provides a purpose-built AI cloud |
| 0:30.8 | designed specifically for pioneers at leading AI labs and enterprises ready to power the biggest ideas and the boldest ambitions. |
| 0:40.7 | Ready for anything, ready for AI. |
| 0:44.1 | To learn more about how CoreWeave powers the world's best AI, go to coreweave.com |
| 0:49.2 | slash ready for anything. |
| 0:52.7 | As your company scales, the hardest part isn't ambition, it's alignment. |
| 0:58.2 | That's why Atlassian built the teamwork collection, an AI-powered teamwork platform designed |
| 1:03.3 | to help teams move faster together. |
| 1:05.4 | By connecting Jira, Confluence, Lume, and Rovo, teams can easily align work to real business goals, plan and track progress together, remove knowledge silos, and access the real magic of AI plus human collaboration. |
| 1:21.2 | Visit at lassean.com slash team changer to learn more. That's A-T-L-A-S-S-I-A-N.com slash team changer. |
| 1:34.6 | Google is the hero of the last 30 years of the internet. They finance the entire thing. The problem is that AI breaks that. |
| 1:42.0 | 18 months ago, it was 20 times harder to get traffic from Google |
| 1:45.3 | than it was 10 years ago. Now it's 50 times harder. It's 3,500 times harder to get traffic |
| 1:50.8 | from Open AI than Google evolved. Sixty-five thousand times harder to get traffic from Anthropic. |
| 1:56.6 | Why did Sam and Elon start Open AI? Because they were terrified that Google was going to run away with the whole game. |
| 2:03.8 | Everything is started effectively as a counterweight to Google, and that's the puzzle. |
| 2:26.8 | That's Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince speaking to me live on stage at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, in mid-March. |
| 2:36.6 | Cloudflare helps facilitate more than 20% of all online traffic, which gives Matthew unique perspective about how AI is changing the internet and the motivations of the major tech platforms. |
| 2:40.6 | He also shares his real-time experience on the front lines of cyber war with Iran. |
| 2:46.1 | This is Matthew's second appearance on the show, and he doesn't disappoint. |
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