Recently, the eponymous founders of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz went public in announcing their support for Trump in order to protect what they called "little tech" – as opposed to "big tech" To them, little tech basically means startups, which they believe are under threat from "bad government policies". While big tech is trying to entrench it's advantage with regulatory capture, little tech just wants to party. We discuss the new battlelines, and – crucially – tell you which...

You are no doubt aware that the world suffered a fairly significant IT outage at the end of last week, affecting everything from TV broadcasts to supermarkets and airports. Turns out it was because of cybersecurity company CrowdStrike releasing a thoroughly bung update to Windows machines. In this ep, we talk about the incident, how susceptible the world is to single points of IT failure, and other assorted and sundry topics. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A recent political incident involving the former president provide a stress test of X under Elon Musk. It also provides us with an opportunity to do a side-by-side comparison of how it was reported on the various post-twitter clones: Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon.  Additionally, the several loud noises at the Trump rally led to a cascade of Silicon Valley stalwarts to endorse the Republican nominee for president – we examine the profound political shift that has occurred over the past 8...

Real estate tech is an underrated part of the broader tech ecosystem. From listing and buying platforms to property management apps and everything in-between, there's a suite of tech solutions for selling, buying, renting, investing and just having a squiz at property. In this ep, we take a little tour through real estate tech, which mostly ends up as a struggle session. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is a free preview of a premium episode. To subscribe to Down Round Premium and get access, head here. While the northern hemisphere is on summer holiday, we grind. Given there's not much tech news floating around as a result, we continued the discussion of AI from last episode – this time getting wildly philosophical about legal rights and the art of creation. With a few diversions along the way ;). Links I Made This – Hypercritical See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over the past few weeks, several equity reports – from the likes of Goldman Sachs and Barclays – have sounded the alarm on the amount of capital expenditure currently being spent by the tech industry on building out AI capacity. Analysts and investors are asking: how are you going to pay for all this? And how long do we have to wait for that? In this ep, we talk about the current discourse, connect it to the dot com bubble, and arrive at a 100% correct take no one could possibly dispute. ...

Australia's experiment with forcing big tech to pay media companies like Nine and News Corp for content is running into choppy waters, as Meta refuses to play ball and Google seems less keen on news than it once was.  In this episode, we catch up with the media and how it's handling today's dynamics of the internet and – especially – the new era of AI deals. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nuclear is in the air. (Not literally.) In Australia, politicians are debating it, while a huge range of nuclear startups are ruling it out for funding and attention. In this episode, we chat about nuclear power and how the tech industry is talking about it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nvidia is the engine room of the AI moment, but they are struggling a little right now. The stock underwent a massive correction this week, and founder Jensen Huang is reportedly worried that the gravy train is about to end. We used that as an excuse to dive into a few interesting trends going on in AI, Apple's moves, whether the hype is matching the product, and what it all means. Note: we said in this episode that Apple was striking an AI deal with Meta, but now Bloomberg is saying it...

Tencent is one of the largest and most valuable companies on earth, with operations that touch just about every part of the digital economy in China and beyond. From WeChat to gaming to film production to payments, Tencent continues to expand far beyond its original station as a Chinese app developer. In this ep, we take a tour through Tencent, including its weird connections to a South African company. Classic Down Round material. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is a free preview of a premium episode. To subscribe to Down Round Premium and get access, head here. You thought that because COVID was long over you could stop hearing about GameStop. Wrong! Keith "RoaringKitty" Gill has returned, and the notorious meme stock has been pumping as a result. We took this as an excuse to revisit the GameStop story from the beginning, exploring the factors which led to the original phenomenon.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Apple held the keynote at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), where it traditionally announces its upcoming software updates. As predicted, the company announced its moves into generative AI – which it is bundling under the name Apple Intelligence – alongside a partnership with OpenAI. In this ep, we dive into the announcements, and what they mean for Apple going forward. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is a free preview of a premium episode. To subscribe to Down Round Premium and get access, head here. A few weeks ago, Microsoft announced its new Surface Laptop with Copilot + PC, which it intends to be a direct competitor with the MacBook Air. On the one hand, it's an interesting attempt to get Windows PCs back into competition. ON the other hand, it's also an attempt by Microsoft to wind LLMs an AI into its operating system. In this ep, we talk about the Apple/Microsoft rivalry,...

For a long time, it wasn't a great look for startups and big tech – outside of companies like Microsoft – to openly work with the military-industrial complex. That was for contractors like Raytheon and General Dynamics. Tech generally maintained the sunny disposition that it was better to enable world peace through well targeted digital ads. That has changed, and startups like Anduril are now positioning themselves as a new generation of military supplier, marrying Silicon Valley innovation...

In the first part of a two-part episode on Google and OpenAI's tough PR challenges of the past couple of weeks, we dive into Google's launch of AI summaries on the web, which led the venerable search engine to recommend pregnant women blast cigs and amateur chefs to mix glue into their pizza sauce. We chat about the rocky launch, what it means for Google, and how it might affect the web going forward. Later this week, premium subscribers can hear us talk about OpenAI's fight with Scarlett...

It's time for another edition of DOWN ROUND Q&A. We solicited questions from both or premium members in Discord and our followers on X, and today we're answering them for you. We cover everything from macOS to LLMs to Boeing and smart homes. Links Down Round on X Down Round on Instagram Down Round on TikTok Sign up for Down Round Premium See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is a free preview of a premium episode. To subscribe to Down Round Premium and get access, head here. The pain for the gaming industry doesn't seem over, with Xbox closing studios, more layoffs, Sony fighting with its fanbase and growth looking sluggish. It raises one big question: has blockbuster game development outrun its ability to actually make money? In this episode, we return to the world of gaming to discuss Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, the increasingly fraught big budget...

Apple and Google are both on the precipice of announcing deeper integration of generative AI into their respective operating systems. Google's IO conference is this week, and reporting abounds that Apple has inked a deal with OpenAI to integrate GPT with iOS. There's a big question as to whether they're doing this because users actually want it, or because investors and the market thinks they should. In this episode, we talk about Google and Apple, what their AI implementations might look...

This is a free preview of a premium episode. To subscribe to Down Round Premium and get access, head here. Quantum computing has been a research and academic pursuit for decades, but it has been picking up buzz over the last few years as both big tech companies and smaller startups get into the space. The Australian government recently announced a $1 billion investment into quantum startup PsiQuantum, which gives us an excuse to talk about it. What is quantum computing? Is it actually...

Anyone who lives in Australia would be aware of Foxtel's new streaming box Hubbl, thanks to an absolutely overwhelming ad campaign pitching it. We talk about the Hubbl, and use it as an excuse to dive into streaming more generally, and what's been going on since the last time we talked about it. Links Foxtel faces its streaming apocalypse – AFR Down Round on X Down Round on Instagram Down Round on TikTok Sign up for Down Round Premium See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, it happened: the US passed legislation to force ByteDance to divest TikTok in the country. Now, the company technically has 12 months to make it happen. But is that the end of the story? In this episode, we discuss how we arrived at this point, what avenues TikTok has left, and who or what might acquire TikTok if it comes down to that. Links TikTok could soon be sold. Here's how much it's worth and who could buy it. – CBS Byte-Dance was told to sell TikTok or face a ban. There are...

Everything is chatbots now. Every company must become a purveyor of bespoke chatbots.The latest cab off the rank is Meta, which just unveiled Llama 3, the latest version of its open source LLM. But this time they have integrated it deeply into Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, whacking a big nasty chatbox over the searchbar in all these apps. In this episode, we talk about Meta's strategy in AI, and what Zuck might be cooking. Links The Dwarkesh pod with Zuckerberg Down Round on X Down...

This is a free preview of a premium episode. To subscribe to Down Round Premium and get access, head here. As Downies will know well, one of the themes we're keeping an eye on is the number of products and product categories that are trying to replace the smartphone, which has been lagging in sales and hype of late. Two devices which pitched a bold new path forward are the Humane AI Pin and the Apple Vision Pro. Based on reviews, neither of them are looking very good at all. We...

Over the past few weeks, there has been a surprising amount of movement in the AI music space. Suno and Udio are two lavishly funded AI music generation startups which just launched new models, which allow you to make songs in a wide range of genres from prompts. While not perfect, they both sound pretty good. At the same time, Spotify is trialling AI-generated playlists, seemingly laying the groundwork for their own generative music. In this ep, we talk about the new models and what they...

This week, we're joined by Kyle Harrison, who is General Partner at Contrary, a US venture capital fund. As well as investing, Kyle writes the newsletter Investing 101 2.0, where he shares his various insights into the VC ecosystem – including where, in his view, it's all gone wrong. Kyle joins us to chat about the state of VC after the end of the tech boom, why he doesn't think anyone has learned their lesson, and what he thinks will happen with AI on both the tech and the investment...