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


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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(736)

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270: The Mean Cul-de-sacs

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269: Winehousestein

269: Winehousestein

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30 Jul 20181h 59min

268: Fiddlesticks

268: Fiddlesticks

Tech news overload; Uber background checks; Twitter's lack of "bandwidth"; Apple autonomous cars; AI decision learning tree bullcrappery; Prime Day; Google fined; Moviepass copycats; Facebook's many p...

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267: Everybody's Heard About the Bird

267: Everybody's Heard About the Bird

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16 Jul 20181h 20min

266: Explain to Me Like I'm Five with Jordan Harbinger

266: Explain to Me Like I'm Five with Jordan Harbinger

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265: 5 Easy Ways To Keep Facebook from Listening To You

265: 5 Easy Ways To Keep Facebook from Listening To You

Yes, that again; mea culpa advertising; distracted parenting & gaming disorders; Amazon Show & Buttons; browser battles; the cyclical Internet; Hypernormalisation; Moviepass, hold my beer; a win for p...

25 Jun 20181h 22min

264: Now with Extra Italy

264: Now with Extra Italy

Sherlock Escapes; Bird/Weed Connection; Net Neutrality is DEAD; FBI get the goods; Shatner and IBM go blockchain; Star Trek VR; Bunkers are bad; China hates monkeys; Google can't translate rules judge...

18 Jun 20181h 11min

263: Bird Flu Epidemics

263: Bird Flu Epidemics

Scooters spreading; Sherlock, hero; RIP Bourdain; browser swapping; streaming scandals; Facebook data trending; declining crypto-crap; Buzzfeed pivots; Apple WWDC; Riverhead holo-phones; VR doilies; r...

11 Jun 20181h 12min

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