688: Why, Combinator?
Grumpy Old Geeks14 Mar 2025

688: Why, Combinator?

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

It's Pi Day.

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

Are We Inside a Black Hole?


MEDIA CANDY

Severance is laughing at you

Somehow, Severance season 2 cost an enormous $20 million per episode

Eddy Cue and Ben Stiller interview each other about Severance

Paradise

The White Lotus

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

Zoom PodTrak P2

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

Dave Bittner

The CyberWire

Only Malware in the Building

Gravity Falls

Baiting A Romance Fraudster

Hermit Crabs: Conga Line Cooperation

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Episoder(741)

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737: Monetizable Content

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733: Predator Friendly Hunting Ground

733: Predator Friendly Hunting Ground

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732: We’re Not In the Files!

732: We’re Not In the Files!

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7 Feb 1h 16min

731: I Want My 13 Trillion Dollars!

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We kick off FOLLOW UP by checking in on Elon Musk’s personal dumpster fire, where the EU is investigating Grok for deepfake slop while Tesla’s “unsupervised” robotaxis turned out to be supervised by l...

30 Jan 1h 19min

730: Ethical Broads

730: Ethical Broads

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23 Jan 1h 26min

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