Weekly audio updates at the intersection of tech and democracy. From Casey Newton. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
18 min
Democrats have a mandate to rein in frontier labs, data centers, and more. Can they deliver without repeating their mistakes from the social-media era? Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/thursday-newsletter-7/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
16 min
AI search is underperforming for Google, and it's killing Reddit's traffic. What now? Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/thursday-newsletter-6/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
10 min
Why we're betting on AI realism. PLUS: The hell of PHP2Shell Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/machine-gods-manifesto-ai-realism/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
18 min
Democrats have a mandate to rein in frontier labs, data centers, and more. Can they deliver without repeating their mistakes from the social-media era? Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/thursday-newsletter-7/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
16 min
AI search is underperforming for Google, and it's killing Reddit's traffic. What now? Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/thursday-newsletter-6/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
10 min
Why we're betting on AI realism. PLUS: The hell of PHP2Shell Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/machine-gods-manifesto-ai-realism/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
10 min
Will the approach that beat Meta in New Mexico work against ChatGPT? Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/openai-states-lawsuit-liability/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
7 min
Calls for a new kind of slowdown were the talk of The Curve. PLUS: Slinking back to X Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/does-intelligence-need-a-hard-cap/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
11 min
With safety questions still swirling, the company introduces a more business-focused take on agents Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/openai-dots-agents-devday-2026/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
55 min
Three months ago, we began our podcast miniseries by asking how likely artificial intelligence is to take large numbers of jobs. Our first guest, Box CEO Aaron Levie, argued that mass disruption would be highly unlikely. And several subsequent guests, from Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman to labor economist Kathryn Ann Edwards, expressed similar skepticism about a labor wipeout. The argument has significant emotional appeal — who doesn’t want to believe that technology will create more jobs than it eliminates? For our final episode, I wanted to speak with someone who has considered the problem from all the major perspectives we’ve covered here from the start: operator, software builder, and civic leader. And that wish led me to Clara Shih. In our conversation, she lays out a three-way taxonomy for how AI reshapes a job, borrowed from MIT economist David Autor; predicts that one in five corporate roles is "especially going to be challenged"; explains why she disagrees with her nonprofit advisor Andrew Yang about universal basic income; and offers a hot take about who will actually do the legal, marketing, and accounting work of the future. Plus, Platformer fellow Ella Markianos joins at the top of the show to discuss this week's news about AI and jobs. Sponsored by Atlassian Jira | Try Today. Jira.dev Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 3 min
For our penultimate episode, I wanted to visit someone running a version of that experiment in a somewhat unexpected place: the media business. Dan Shipper runs a website that reviews new technology alongside a product lab that’s building it — and for some time now I’ve wondered what it’s like to work in a place like that. Today Every is a publication about AI that draws attention across the industry. At the same time, Every is also a product studio. But AI is changing the way that the company writes. Every has tried to clone the taste of its editor in chief, Kate Lee, by collecting a dataset of 30,000 of her historical edits, using it to build a copy-editing agent, and back-testing it against her past work. More controversially, Shipper told me that far more writers are integrating AI into their workflows than will admit it publicly. "I think there is a real dirty secret right now, which is that almost every writer is using it,” he said. “Just, most of them are not saying so." Plus, Platformer fellow Ella Markianos joins at the top of the show to discuss this week's news about AI and jobs. Sponsored by Atlassian Jira | Try Today. Jira.dev Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
16 min
And everything else I learned about productivity this year. Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/karpathy-llm-wiki-journalism-productivity/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 12 min
Last week on the Platformer podcast, Replit's Amjad Masad predicted that within three years, we'll be using fewer apps and more agents — with the agents using apps on our behalf. For the fifth episode of our miniseries on productivity in the AI era, I talked to someone building one of those agents. Jean-Denis Greze is the co-founder and CEO of Town — though his actual title there is mayor. Town's signature bet is that you will not have a relationship with a piece of software so much as with a character. Your assistant — Town calls it a townie — gets a name, a personality, and an animal avatar; Greze's is a silver fox named Ivy, a nod to his prematurely gray hair. (Mine is a cheerful finch named Rufus.) Within about 90 seconds of connecting my email and calendar, it had produced a scary-good dossier about who I am, who I know, and what I'm working on; over the first two weeks, it builds a private wiki about your life that Greze told me costs the company about $100 per user to generate. Plus, Platformer fellow Ella Markianos joins at the top of the show to discuss this week's news about AI and jobs. Sponsored by Atlassian Jira | Try Today. Jira.dev Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 5 min
Last week on the Platformer podcast, Granola's Chris Pedregal told me we are only 5 percent into the AI transformation of work. For the fourth episode of our miniseries on productivity in the AI era, we talk to someone who is trying to speed up the process — building an AI tool for writing software, and a company that can increasingly run itself. Amjad Masad is the co-founder and CEO of Replit, which he started in 2016 with his wife, the designer Haya Odeh. Last month, Replit published a claim that caught my attention: that its engineers nearly tripled the amount of code each person ships in just six months, while preserving the quality of its code, thanks to the rollout of agents throughout the company. After spending 15 years making coding easier to learn, he now tells people not to bother learning it at all. "As an entrepreneur, you have to be honest with yourself," he told me. "Otherwise the company would die." Plus, Platformer fellow Ella Markianos joins at the top of the show to discuss this week's news about AI and jobs. Sponsored by Atlassian Jira | Try Today. Jira.dev Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
9 min
Six months after trying to automate myself, I gave Claude Fable 5 a bigger job: replacing Casey. Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/replacing-casey-with-claude/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 14 min
Last week on the Platformer podcast, Thomas Paul Mann predicted that within a few years, as much as half of the software on your Mac could be software you made yourself. For the third episode of our miniseries on keeping your advantage at work in the AI era, we take a look at the tool that may already know more about your job than any other: the AI notetaker that listens to every meeting you take. And there's no better person to discuss it with than Chris Pedregal. Chris is the co-founder and CEO of Granola, and if you've met with a startup founder or a venture capitalist over the past two years, there's a good chance Granola was running quietly on their laptop — and a good chance you never noticed.Granola's invisibility is also its controversy: unlike the bots that announce themselves in your meetings, out of the box nobody knows it's running. Chris made some news on the show, too: Granola never stores audio, and it is now researching whether to automatically delete verbatim transcripts after a period of time, compressing what it keeps. Plus, Platformer fellow Ella Markianos joins at the top of the show to discuss this week's news about AI and jobs. Sponsored by Atlassian Jira | Try Today. Jira.dev Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
14 min
In the wake of OpenAI’s cyberattack against Hugging Face, few seem ready to acknowledge the implications. Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/a-big-week-for-ai-denialism/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 6 min
In the second episode of our second season of the Platformer Podcast, Raycast co-founder and CEO Thomas Mann offers a clear-eyed critique of commercial software. In his telling, most software is a compromise: companies chasing growth pile features onto their products until they turn generic. His answer is hyper-personalized software: apps built for a market of exactly one person, then remixed and shared from there. He predicts that within three years, 30 to 50 percent of the software on your Mac could be software you made yourself. Thomas also broke some news on the show for Glaze Pro subscribers. And he offered a bracing counterpoint to the star-athletes-only hiring wisdom taking hold across the industry. The engineers who benefit most from AI, he argues, are the most junior and the most senior, while the person in the middle is in "a bit of a weird spot." Plus, Platformer fellow Ella Markianos joins at the top of the show to discuss this week's news about AI and jobs. Sponsored by Atlassian Jira | Try Today. Jira.dev Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 8 min
Last season on the Platformer podcast, we explored what AI means for jobs — including the risk that huge numbers of them might soon go away. This season, we're asking a more practical question: what can you actually do about it? In the first episode of our second season of the Platformer Podcast, The Verge Editor-at-Large David Pierce joins us to talk about his obsession with productivity. David tests every productivity tool in the world so that the rest of us don't have to. He estimates that he has personally installed, used, and abandoned some 200 to-do apps — a number limited, he told me, "by the number of them that exist, not by the number of them that I'm willing to try." He switched notes apps the day we recorded our conversation. Plus, Platformer fellow Ella Markianos joins at the top of the show to discuss this week's news about AI and jobs. Sponsored by Atlassian Rovo | Become an AI-native team with Rovo. https://www.atlassian.com/rovo Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
13 min
Adventures with Raycast’s new app-making app, Glaze. Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/glaze-app-raycast-vibe-coding-review/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 2 min
In the seventh and final episode of our first season of the Platformer podcast, AWS CEO Matt Garman explains why he's still bullish on hiring junior employees, even as he rolls out a suite of AI agents that promise to replace entire jobs. Can his rosy vision of the future survive contact with the reality that Amazon is busy building? Where our previous guest, Replika and Wabi founder Eugenia Kuyda, told us the fear of job loss is "super justified," Garman might be the most full-throated optimist we've featured in the whole series. It's an optimism that doesn't always seem to square with Amazon's own moves. The company has cut roughly 30,000 corporate jobs since last October. Its CEO, Andy Jassy, has written that AI will "reduce our total corporate workforce" in the years ahead. Among other strategies, the company plans to replace half a million jobs with robots. Garman is talking up the value of labor even as he sells the technology that may displace them. In our conversation, he attempted to square that circle with a familiar argument: that technology destroys individual jobs but creates new and better ones, and that the most durable skill is a simple willingness to learn. Plus, Platformer fellow Ella Markianos joins at the top of the show to discuss this week's news about AI and jobs. Sponsored by Atlassian Rovo | Become an AI-native team with Rovo. https://www.atlassian.com/rovo Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 24 min
In the sixth (and first live!) episode of the Platformer podcast, Replika and Wabi founder Eugenia Kuyda argues that argues that we are living in "the Microsoft DOS era of AI interfaces," and that we’re desperately in need of a Windows equivalent: an easy-to-use graphical user interface that lets the average person take full advantage of agents and personalized software. When that happens, she predicts, the long tail of subscription-based apps — the calorie counters, meditation apps, and fitness trackers of the world — will start to disappear, replaced by software that we make and share ourselves. Kuyda is our first guest to say plainly that she believes that is a fantasy. The fear of job loss is "super justified," she told me; in her view, AI has made hiring junior employees "extremely expensive and completely unsustainable for a startup," because every hire now competes with the leverage of what she calls a “1,000x engineer.” Can vibe-coded apps truly compete with enterprise software in the way that she hopes? Or will most companies continue to prefer the stability and support that comes with traditional software as a service? On our show, Kuyda breaks some news: after a year in beta, Wabi will launch publicly before the end of the month. Plus, Platformer fellow Ella Markianos joins at the top of the show to discuss this week's news about AI and jobs. Sponsored by Atlassian Rovo | Become an AI-native team with Rovo. https://www.atlassian.com/rovo Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 8 min
In the fifth episode of the Platformer podcast, Brookings senior fellow Molly Kinder argues that the AI jobs debate is stuck in a useless seesaw between apocalypse and denial — and that the real danger lies in the "messy middle," where AI doesn't kill most jobs but concentrates its damage on some of the most coveted careers in America. Her rule of thumb: if you can do your job locked in a closet with a computer, you're probably in trouble. Platformer's Casey Newton talks to the author of "The Messy Middle" about why white-collar workers will feel AI before blue-collar workers do, whether AI is about to reverse the 50-year boom in knowledge work, how the jobs that were safest during COVID became the riskiest in the AI era, why de-skilling could quietly turn $85,000 jobs into minimum-wage ones, why cutting everyone a UBI check would destroy the labor market, and what targeted policies — from a workforce reinvestment fund to wage insurance — might actually manage the transition. Kinder also breaks some news: after three years leading Brookings' research on AI and work, she reveals — on her last day at the think tank — that she's launching a new organization devoted to solving, not just studying, the AI jobs problem. Plus, Platformer fellow Ella Markianos joins at the top of the show to discuss this week's news about AI and jobs. Sponsored by Atlassian Rovo | Become an AI-native team with Rovo. https://www.atlassian.com/rovo Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 10 min
In the fourth episode of the Platformer podcast, labor economist Kathryn Anne Edwards makes the case that the AI jobs panic is overblown — and that the real threat to workers isn't the technology, but a government that refuses to fix the social safety net. She also flatly rejects Sam Altman's vision of a permanently unemployed "idle class," which she calls not just wrong but classist. Platformer's Casey Newton talks to the Bloomberg Opinion columnist and co-host of the Optimist Economy podcast about why economists can't — and shouldn't bother to — pin down exactly how many jobs AI will destroy, whether the recent wave of AI-blamed layoffs is real or just "AI-washing," what's actually squeezing entry-level workers, what she tells new grads who can't find a first job, why writing everyone a UBI check isn't a panacea, and whether Washington will ever build the safety net we already know how to build. Edwards also explains why the closest thing we've seen to an "AI rapture" already happened — in the spring of 2020, when half of the leisure and hospitality industry lost their jobs in three weeks — and how the economy managed to claw its way back. Plus, Platformer fellow Ella Markianos joins at the top of the show to discuss the chipmakers handing out massive bonuses, as workers at Samsung and TSMC win a bigger share of the AI boom. Who else should we have on this show? Let us know at casey@platformer.news. Sponsored by Atlassian Rovo | Become an AI-native team with Rovo. https://www.atlassian.com/rovo Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 2 min
In the third episode of the Platformer podcast, Claude Code creator Boris Cherny explains how he's automating his own job. He hasn't written a line of code in more than six months, and thinks the title "software engineer" could start to disappear as soon as this year. Platformer's Casey Newton talks to the inventor of the fastest-growing AI coding tool in the world about what Cherny actually means when he says coding is "solved," why he predicts companies will need both far fewer engineers and far more of them, what he tells new computer science grads about where to build a career now, and whether all this added productivity will ever let anyone work less. (Hint: so far, it just means doing more). Cherny also explains the surprise that keeps upending his own predictions: the people getting the most out of AI tools are increasingly electricians, doctors, and carpenters rather than professional engineers. Plus, Platformer fellow Ella Markianos joins at the top of the show to discuss a new Microsoft study on AI and jobs. Disclosure: Casey's fiancé works at Anthropic. Who else should we have on this show? Let us know at casey@platformer.news. Sponsored by Atlassian Rovo | Become an AI-native team with Rovo. https://www.atlassian.com/rovo Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 10 min
In the second episode of the Platformer podcast, Google SVP James Manyika makes a bet: AI is not going to wipe out half of white-collar jobs in the next two years, no matter what the AI CEOs keep telling you. Platformer's Casey Newton talks to one of tech's most credentialed thinkers on AI and the economy about why labor markets move slower than the technology, what the "missed use" of AI means for countries the boom risks leaving behind, and what really keeps him up at night about AI and work (hint: it's not job loss). Plus: Platformer fellow Ella Markianos brings us a fresh survey of economists on what *they* think will happen with AI and jobs. Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/james-manyika-google-ai-jobs-io-2026/ Who else should we have on this show? Let us know at casey@platformer.news. Sponsored by Atlassian Rovo | Become an AI-native team with Rovo. https://www.atlassian.com/rovo Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 7 min
In the first episode of the Platformer podcast, Box CEO Aaron Levie makes the case that you'll keep your job — you just won't recognize it. Casey talks to one of enterprise tech's most optimistic voices on why the "SaaSpocalypse" thesis is wrong, what the seat-based SaaS model really looks like in an agentic world, and why he thinks AI is going to create more jobs than it kills. Plus: Platformer fellow Ella Markianos talks about fresh survey data that shows a surprising divide in who's actually using AI at work. Read the newsletter here: https://platformer.news/ai-job-loss-box-ceo-aaron-levie/ Who else should we have on this show? Let us know at casey@platformer.news. Sponsored by Atlassian Rovo | Become an AI-native team with Rovo. atlassian.com/rovo Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
11 min
A year ago, officials all but sneered at the idea of AI safety. A new frontier model has them reconsidering. Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/trump-administration-doomers-ai/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
14 min
On newsletters in the age of AI automation. PLUS: Musk and OpenAI in court, and China blocks Meta's Manus acquisition. Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/platformer-schedule-changes-ai-automation/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
19 min
New research confirms that LLMs often perform better when you encourage them. But why? Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/chatbot-emotion-research-anthropic-alignment-interpretability/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
12 min
OpenAI’s CEO is asking the public to lower the temperature on AI. But who turned it up in the first place? Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/sam-altman-ai-backlash/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
11 min
The company says it has built its most dangerous model yet. Can its coalition of internet companies fix the internet before others catch up? Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/anthropic-mythos-cybersecurity-risk-experts/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
16 min
The verdicts in last week’s social media trials have alarmed open-internet advocates. But it’s possible to regulate platform design while also protecting speech. Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/social-media-trials-230-content-design/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
11 min
The company is taking new steps to stop AI impersonation — but across the internet, the problem continues to grow. PLUS: Anthropic in court, and Meta loses in New Mexico. Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/spotify-artist-profile-protection/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
14 min
In 2019, Mark Zuckerberg called privacy the future of social networking. Not anymore. Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/instagram-encryption-meta-whatsapp/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
15 min
A protest at OpenAI headquarters suggests the backlash to military AI is growing — even if its politics are still half-formed. PLUS: The Pentagon declares Anthropic a supply chain risk. Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/openai-protest-military-ai-movement/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
21 min
Sam Altman’s deal with the Pentagon seems too good to be true. What happens when the public realizes that? Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/openai-pentagon-surveillance-drones-backlash/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
17 min
AI safety researchers have long worried that a government would seek to use AI for domestic surveillance and autonomous killing. The Pentagon’s fight with Anthropic threatens to make it a reality. Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/anthropic-pentagon-authoritarian-ai/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
6 min
Testifying before a jury in LA, Mark Zuckerberg makes the case that platform design is about free expression. But the walls are closing in on Section 230. Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/the-infinite-scroll-goes-on-trial/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
12 min
A lawsuit that begins in LA this week, along with a new investigation into TikTok by the European Commission, could change social apps forever. Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/social-media-addiction-trial-eu-tiktok-investigation/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
13 min
Anxiety about AI replacing entry-level jobs is on the rise. Could a state-of-the-art chatbot do the job of a Platformer fellow? Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/journalism-job-automation-claude/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
10 min
What a social network for AI agents tells us about the future. Read the newsletter here: https://www.platformer.news/moltbook-ai-agents-security-content-moderation/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
12 min
The “moral panic” framing misses how platforms actually harm kids. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
6 min
Managers say it makes them more productive. Workers don't. What gives? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
6 min
Announcing Platformer+, a new way to listen to our columns. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
5 min
More than a week into a deepfake scandal, a handful of foreign governments have found the strength to do what Apple, Google, and the United States will not. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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