Podcast
TechStuff
Hosted by iHeartPodcasts · EN
Behind every innovation is a new kind of power. TechStuff unpacks how technology reshapes influence, creativity, and control, from Silicon Valley’s rising moguls to the cultural forces they create. Because tech is the new religion, economy, and entertainment, all at once.
Each week, Oz Woloshyn and the brightest minds covering tech dig into the weird, funny, and sometimes unsettling ways technology, AI, and the internet shape our daily lives. From AI and social media to privacy, digital burnout, and the creator economy, they ask how all this innovation is changing who we are, how we work, love, and make meaning.
Smart talk, strange stories, and the questions everyone’s Googling: whether AI will replace us, how social media is affecting our kids, and what it all says about us.
Get in touch here: techstuffpodcast@gmail.com
94episodes
Episodes
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The Internet Found a Way to Monetize Reality Itself. It's Going Exactly as You'd Expect - Week in Tech
5d ago00:48:55Tap to summarizeHow much would it take for you to tattoo a memecoin's name on your forehead? Taylor Lorenz (User Mag) tells us about the platform where crypto speculators pay strangers to do almost anything in service of pumping their coin's value: Pump.fun Go. But Taylor argues this is bigger than a weird internet rabbit hole — it’s a burgeoning ‘bounty economy,’ that’s quietly warping reality itself. Then: Sriram Krishnan, the Senior White House Policy Advisor on Artificial Intelligence, is leaving the White House. Nitasha Tiku (The Washington Post) explains his impact, what this means for the future of federal tech policy and who is jostling for influence in his place. Finally, Kyle Chayka (The New Yorker) on the ‘show’-ification of everything. Even the tech industry is getting into the game, literally. The Founders Fund just bankrolled a slick YouTube series where tech billionaires like Sam Altman and Palmer Luckey play Mafia, the parlor game. It’s bizarre. So why does Silicon Valley keep trying to make content happen, and who is it actually for?Additional Reading: These 430 Viral Videos Are Being Preserved in a British Archive The Bounty Economy Is Breaking Reality - by Taylor Lorenz Top Trump artificial intelligence adviser to leave the White House Kareem Rahma and the Tyranny of Web Video Shows | The New Yorker Can Tech Legends Find the Liar? (Mafia Episode 1) Download SAILY in your app store and use our code techstuff at checkout to get an exclusive 15% off your first purchase! For further details go to https://saily.com/techstuff See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →The Secret Stanford Off-Campus Class for Tech’s Next Titans - The Story
1w ago00:41:31Tap to summarizeDid your college have a secret society? Well, Stanford has a secret off-campus class training the next generation of Silicon Valley billionaires. And it's literally called "How to Rule the World." Theo Baker arrived at Stanford as an aspiring coder with dreams of building the future. Instead, he stumbled into the "Stanford-within-Stanford" — a hidden pipeline connecting a select few students directly to Silicon Valley CEOs, yacht parties, and venture capitalists offering millions before you even have an idea. Then he decided to write a book about it. In How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University, Theo traces his freshman year transformation from tech idealist to award-winning investigative journalist — including the reporting that brought down Stanford's own president. He joins us to talk power, secrecy, and what Silicon Valley is really teaching the next generation. Additional Reading: How to Rule the World by Theo Baker EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/techstuff Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →Shell Game: Me and My Scammer
1w ago00:37:53Tap to summarizeEvan turns his AI-powered voice agent loose on the people who are always at the forefront of technological adoption: the fraudsters and the rip-off artists. How will the scammers and spammers react when they face Evan’s voice agent in a battle of wits? And what happens when they deploy the same kind of AI voice agents on Evan that he’s using on them? Shell Game is made by humans. More specifically, it's produced and edited by Sophie Bridges, and written and hosted by Evan Ratliff. Samantha Henig is our executive producer. Visit shellgame.co to find out more and support the show. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.shellgame.co/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →Blue Origin Rocket Explodes in Apocalyptic Mushroom Cloud - Week in Tech
2w ago00:46:49Tap to summarizeBlue Origin's latest rocket test ended in what the company called "an anomaly" — and what everyone else would call an explosion. Reed Albergotti (Semafor) explains why blowing things up is just part of the process and why the US Space Program is probably going to be fine. Then, Kyle Chayka (The New Yorker) pulls back the curtain on the shadow market for pre-IPO equity in OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX. It’s a mania where people are willing to take pre-IPO stock as payment for $2.9M houses. It's frothy out there. Finally, Taylor Lorenz (User Mag) digs into the concept of a ‘permanent underclass’ — the fear that letting AI run rampant could freeze everyone in their current economic position forever. Do we laugh it off or get serious about regulation? Additional Reading: Blue Origin and Amazon Had Momentum. Then Came the Fireball. | The New York Times A Booming Shadow Market of Sketchy A.I. Investments | The New Yorker You Are About to Become Economically Worthless | User Mag Silicon Valley Is Bracing for a Permanent Underclass | The New York Times Download SAILY in your app store and use our code techstuff at checkout to get an exclusive 15% off your first purchase! For further details go to https://saily.com/techstuffSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →The Man Building the Last AI Humans Will Need to Design - The Story
2w ago00:34:33Tap to summarizeWhat if the fastest path to superintelligence is AI that builds itself? That's the bet Richard Socher is making — and he has the track record to back it up. A double unicorn founder and early investor in eight unicorn companies (including Perplexity and Hugging Face), Richard has spent 15 years building the foundational research that powers modern AI. Now he’s co-founded Recursive with an elite team from Google DeepMind, OpenAI, and Meta to pursue something more ambitious: a self-improving AI that generates its own scientific breakthroughs — what he calls a "eureka machine."Richard joins Oz to unpack how recursive superintelligence actually works and why open-ended AI systems could outpace today's giants. EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/techstuff Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Inside the Octagon: How AI Brings UFC’s Fastest Moments into Focus
2w ago00:47:14Tap to summarizeMost of what happens inside the UFC Octagon is too fast for the human eye to follow. Enter Alon Cohen, Executive Vice President of Innovation for TKO, who has spent 15 years building the data and AI systems that expose the hidden moments that help decide a match. Malcolm Gladwell sits down with Alon to uncover how UFC’s partnership with IBM turns chaos into clarity, giving fans and commentators a deeper story behind every bout.This is a paid advertisement from IBM. The conversations on this podcast don’t necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.Visit us at https://www.ibm.com/think/podcasts/smart-talksSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →Shell Game: Quality Assurance
2w ago00:33:22Tap to summarizeThis is the story of what happens when Evan Ratliff, a longtime tech journalist, makes a digital copy of himself, powered by AI, in order to understand how amazing and scary and utterly ridiculous the world is about to get. In Episode 1, Evan clones his voice, hooks it up to a chat bot and his phone line, and sends it off to tangle with customer service representatives.Shell Game is made by humans. More specifically, it's produced and edited by Sophie Bridges, and written and hosted by Evan Ratliff. Samantha Henig is our executive producer. Visit shellgame.co to find out more and support the show.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →The Pope vs. AI? It’s Complicated - Week in Tech
3w ago00:49:51Tap to summarizeThe Pope called for AI to be "disarmed" — then gave Anthropic a seat on the dais. Nitasha Tiku (The Washington Post) unpacks what the Vatican's landmark intervention means for Silicon Valley. Then, get off Nextdoor, Kyle Chayka (The New Yorker) says hyperlocal publications are in vogue and a respite from algorithmic feeds. And finally, an update on last weekend’s Enhanced Games in Las Vegas. Journalist Chris Gayomali, host of the podcast SuperHuman, persevered through the 95-degree heat and d-list Gen Z influencers to witness one world record that almost didn’t happen. Additional Reading: Can AI be a ‘child of God’? Inside Anthropic’s meeting with Christian leaders. | The Washington Post Pope Leo Warns of Risks From A.I. in 42,300-Word Encyclical | The New York Times Your Friendly Neighborhood Newsletter | The New Yorker SuperHuman Podcast | Vegas Download SAILY in your app store and use our code techstuff at checkout to get an exclusive 15% off your first purchase! For further details go to https://saily.com/techstuffSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →How AI Almost Led To This Tech Reporter’s Divorce - The Story
3w ago00:43:15Tap to summarizeWhat happens when you let technology take over your life? Joanna Stern (Fmr. Wall Street Journal / New Things) found out. She spent all of 2025 letting the robots in: Waymos, AI therapists, robot massagers, assistant researcher agents…During that yearlong experiment, Joanna Stern chronicled her findings in a new book, I Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything. She speaks to Oz about letting AI diagnose her son’s praying mantis, sending Bill Gates her health log, and how she sees AI impacting the job market. Additional Reading: I Am Not A Robot | Joanna Stern EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/techstuff Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcribe →Google's AI chief: We're Living in the “Foothills of the Singularity” - Week In Tech
4w ago00:47:04Tap to summarizeWhat does it mean to be at the “foothills of the singularity”? That’s how DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis ended his speech at Google I/O, prompting questions and scratched heads. Oz and Reed Albergotti (Semafor) attempt to dissect the meaning behind Hassabis’s confounding statement. They also discuss why so many commencement speakers are getting booed by college graduates after bringing up AI, and what it means for SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI to all be heading towards an IPO. Then, Oz sits down with David Webster, Head of UX at Google Labs, for a deeper look at the products Google unveiled at their annual developer conference of the year. Additional Reading: DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis on what Google AI products say about ‘singularity’ | Semafor A Guide to Commencement | Semafor SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI’s Sprint to Go Public Defines the AI Boom’s Big Day - WSJ Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was booed | Strait Times IG Subscriber Q&A: Live @ Google I/O - by Alex Heath - Sources Download SAILY in your app store and use our code techstuff at checkout to get an exclusive 15% off your first purchase! For further details go to https://saily.com/techstuffSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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