Insiders React: Cloudflare Catches Perplexity Red-Handed + Wikipedia Adopts Anti-AI Slop Policy, AWS Losing Ground

In violation of long-standing internet norms like robots.txt, Cloudflare caught Perplexity AI scraping content from websites that had explicitly opted out.

The situation begs the question: what happens when AI startups prioritize growth over digital consent?

Listen as Chris and Yaniv discuss the repercussions of Cloudflare's "honeypot" traps. They also dig into Wikipedia’s launch of a fast-track deletion policy to counter the overwhelming number of low-effort, AI-generated articles, and consider whether Amazon's AWS is falling behind cloud rivals like Google, Microsoft, and Oracle.

In this episode, you will:

• Understand why Cloudflare accused Perplexity AI of ignoring internet norms
• Learn how robots.txt and internet trust are being undermined by AI crawlers
• Explore whether “move fast and break things” still applies in the AI era
• Discover how Wikipedia is fighting back against a flood of AI-generated slop
• Debate the moral vs. legal boundaries of disruptive startup behavior
• Hear why AWS may be falling behind Google, Microsoft, and even Oracle
• Examine what makes a wartime vs. peacetime CEO in the AI cloud race
• Consider whether AI is eating its own tail by destroying its data sources

The Pact

Honor the Startup Podcast Pact! If you have listened to TSP and gotten value from it, please:

• Follow, rate, and review us in your listening app
• Subscribe to the TSP Mailing List to gain access to exclusive newsletter-only content and early access to information on upcoming episodes: https://thestartuppodcast.beehiiv.com/subscribe
• Secure your official TSP merchandise at https://shop.tsp.show/
• Follow us here on YouTube for full-video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNjm1MTdjysRRV07fSf0yGg
• Give us a public shout-out on LinkedIn or anywhere you have a social media following

Key links

Get your question in for our next Q&A episode: https://forms.gle/NZzgNWVLiFmwvFA2A

The Startup Podcast website: https://www.tsp.show/episodes/

Learn more about Chris and Yaniv

Work 1:1 with Chris: http://chrissaad.com/advisory/

Follow Chris on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrissaad/

Follow Yaniv on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ybernstein/

Producer: Justin McArthur https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-mcarthur

Intro Voice: Jeremiah Owyang https://web-strategist.com/