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Explore every episode of the podcast Better Offline

Dive into the complete episode list for Better Offline. Each episode is cataloged with detailed descriptions, making it easy to find and explore specific topics. Keep track of all episodes from your favorite podcast and never miss a moment of insightful content.

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1–50 of 284

TitlePub. DateDuration
The Truth About Data Centers w/ Paris Marx28 Oct 202600:53:49

In this episode, Ed is joined by Paris Marx, author of the new data center book “Hyperscale,” to talk about the AI buildout, the community groundswell against data centers, and how both politicians and the media fail to hold the powerful accountable.

Tech Won't Save Us: https://techwontsave.us/episodes
Hyperscale Book: https://hyperscalebook.com/
Disconnect Blog: https://disconnect.blog/

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Monologue: Amazon Is Warehousing Billions In GPUs23 Oct 202600:10:59

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron walks you through how Amazon is warehousing billions of dollars of GPUs, and how NVIDIA created an artificial supply chain crisis by forcing hyperscalers to take early delivery of its AI chips.

Business Insider: Amazon is buying billions in Nvidia AI systems it can't yet turn on
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-nvidia-ai-gpu-data-centers-power-shortages-2026-10?utm_campaign=business-link-post&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
Newsletter: AI Had Better Work Out
https://www.wheresyoured.at/ai-had-better-work-out/

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The Mind of Larry Ellison w/ Tom Dotan21 Oct 202601:01:00

In this week's Better Offline, Ed Zitron is joined by writer Tom Dotan to talk about the life of Larry Ellison, his children, his companies, his decades of existential crises, and how all he really cares about is his own individual legacy.

Tom’s story on Vanity Fair: https://www.vanityfair.com/story/larry-ellison-profile?srsltid=AU7gw4U1qN-QypB2hyj-E4wJoas1nKH1KI3dlXxSJrUS4_O1QWVtz8WO
https://archive.ph/MCSfk (archive link)

https://x.com/cityofthetown

https://substack.com/@tdotan

Tom’s latest story on Lightspeed Capital: https://www.newcomer.co/p/after-missing-ais-early-days-lightspeed 

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Monologue: Anthropic Slows Down16 Oct 202600:14:05

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron talks about how Anthropic’s big Q3 revenues underwhelmed an already-nervous market, and how the more of the real numbers we learn about AI, the worse things seem to get.

Newsletter: Annualized Enron Rate
https://www.wheresyoured.at/annualized-enron-rate/
Gartner Analysis: https://x.com/edzitron/status/2110442012281651488?s=20
Q3 numbers from CNBC: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/15/anthropics-third-quarter-revenue-hits-16point8-billion-ipo.html

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The Hater's Guide To Bonds With Rob Wigglesworth14 Oct 202600:42:05

In this week's Better Offline, Ed Zitron is joined by Robin Wigglesworth of the Financial Times to explain how both corporate and sovereign bonds work, why you should care, and what you need to know about the tech industry’s growing debt.

Rob Wigglesworth: A Fabulous Debt: The Epic Story of How Bonds Built the Modern World
https://www.amazon.com/Fabulous-Debt-Story-Bonds-Modern/dp/0593719182 
https://x.com/RobinWigg 
https://www.ft.com/robin-wigglesworth 

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Monologue: Australia's Dodgiest AI IPO Is A Pale Horse09 Oct 202600:10:19

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron talks about the brittle state of Australian AI data center company Firmus’ IPO, its dodgy underlying numbers, and how the Australian media has set an example of how you should actually cover an AI company.


NOTE: This IPO was officially postponed shortly before going to press. The content still rocks.

Newsletter: Credit Crunch: https://www.wheresyoured.at/credit-crunch/https://www.afr.com/technology/firmus-blockbuster-ipo-finds-itself-in-a-36-hour-spiral-of-doom-20261008-p613ul
https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-markets/hedge-fund-uncovers-30-red-flags-against-firmus-20261008-p613t7

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"Cycular" Financing w/ GamersNexus07 Oct 202600:49:50

In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by Steve Burke of GamersNexus to talk about NVIDIA’s “cycular” financing, Trump’s “superintelligence” accord, the growing bubble in the gaming industry, and the Steam Frame VR headset.

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Monologue: Anthropic's $413bn Burden02 Oct 202600:06:38

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron talks about Anthropic’s $413 billion in non-cancellable compute commitments, and how its future depends on the impossible task of borrowing $50 billion to $100 billion a year from a bond market that’s already strained by endless AI data center debt.

Link to details on contracts: https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com/post/3mwoc3p2b2s2m
Newsletter: Dead Money: https://www.wheresyoured.at/dead-money/

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Monologue: Anthropic Lost $8bn In 2025, Was A Worse Business Than OpenAI30 Sep 202600:07:52

In this week's Better Offline, Ed Zitron walks through Anthropic’s 2025 financials, covering how it spent $2.75 to make a dollar, and how it was, at least last year, a worse business than OpenAI.

Dead Money: https://www.wheresyoured.at/dead-money/
Anthropic story from Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/anthropics-ipo-prospectus-shows-sweeping-ai-vision-surging-costs-2026-09-28/

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Email Me: ez@betteroffline.com

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Monologue: The AI Data Center Overbuild25 Sep 202600:10:42

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron talks about how $200bn to $300bn of AI GPUs are sitting in warehouses, how hyperscalers like Microsoft are overstating their AI capacity, and why the AI data center overbuild is magntiudes worse than the Dot Com era fiber buildout. 

Where’re All The AI Chips? https://www.wheresyoured.at/wherere-all-the-ai-chips/
Dario quote: https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/dario-amodei-2#:~:text=Basically%20I%E2%80%99m%20saying,that%20much%20compute 

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The Hidden Recession Beneath The AI Bubble w/ Paul Kedrosky23 Sep 202600:54:38

In this week’s Better Offline, Ed Zitron is joined by economist Paul Kedrosky to talk about how AI is distorting the bond markets to the point that it’s changing the price on US Treasuries, how AI data center economics don’t make sense, and the troubling signs he’s hearing out of Anthropic.

https://paulkedrosky.com/
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFbDiETo29GTIjg6Lk4imig

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Monologue: Shut The F*ck Up, Dario!18 Sep 202600:08:10

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron delivers a simple message: if Dario Amodei truly believes that Anthropic is building dangerous AI, he should stop any and all cybersecurity model training runs, halt his IPO, limit Claude to only the safest possible functions, or shut the fuck up.

Anthropic “80% gross margins” story https://www.ft.com/content/4564e6a5-69e9-40a6-bf0f-a888f2f4f002?syn-25a6b1a6=1

Overcharging story: 
theinformation.com/newsletters/applied-ai/anthropic-customers-find-errant-charges-auditing-startup-says

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Stopping The AI Safety Cult ft. Adam Becker & Cal Newport16 Sep 202601:05:51

Ed Zitron is joined by computer science professor and writer Cal Newport and journalist and astrophysicist Adam Becker to get the word out that the narrative about existential risk from AI is driven by a religious cult of effective altruists and rationalists.

AI Is Already In Dangerous Hands newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ai-is-already-in-dangerous-hands/

Adam
https://bsky.app/profile/adambecker.bsky.social
https://www.youtube.com/@DreamingAgainstTheMachine
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/adam-becker/more-everything-forever/9781541619593/

Cal
Podcast & Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@CalNewportMedia/
Newsletter: https://calnewport.com

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Monologue: Jacob Coxon and the AI Safety Grift11 Sep 202600:16:25

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron runs through the nonsensical, pro-AI lab scare campaign driven by former researcher Jacob Coxon, how the media keeps falling for AI safety grifts, and how dangerous AI is already in the wrong hands - those of Anthropic and OpenAI.

WIRED interview with Coxon: https://archive.md/2026.09.10-091328/https://www.wired.com/story/anthropic-researcher-quits-jacob-coxon-ai-fears-humanity/
Thread on Hubinger and Coxon: https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com/post/3mv4suhyexc2g

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Managing The Situation09 Sep 202600:17:13

In this week’s Better Offline, Ed Zitron walks you through how society continues to manage rather than deal with crises, and how the AI bubble is yet another crisis resulting from a failure to deal with the complexity of the real world. 

Last Week’s Newsletter: Hyperscale Normalization https://www.wheresyoured.at/hyperscale-normalization/ 
This week’s newsletter: Concentration Risk https://www.wheresyoured.at/concentration-risk/ 
Hypernormalization: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr7T07WfIhM 


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Monologue: Concentration Risk04 Sep 202600:10:26

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron runs through how 80% of Anthropic and OpenAI’s enterprise revenues come from the top 1% of its customers, and how the entire AI bubble is a series of different concentration risks supported by venture capital and debt.

Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/hyperscale-normalization/
Ramp Data: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/comments/1w5i9t4/ramp_80_of_openai_and_anthropics_enterprise/
Terrible Groundbreaker piece: https://www.groundbrkr.com/p/the-teaser-period-why-the-ai-boom - please note that many of the numbers in this piece are wrong and it’s written by Claude, but the overall thesis is useful.

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Email Me: ez@betteroffline.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

LLMs Will Never Make Art With Caleb Wilson and Arif Hasan02 Sep 202600:42:55

In this week’s Better Offline, Ed Zitron is joined by Arif Hasan of Wide Left and Caleb Wilson of Kill The Computer to talk about an academic paper on AI slop, and the many reasons why LLMS can never truly make art.

Why Slop Matters: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2601.06060

Arif Hasan
wideleft.football
x.com/ArifHasanNFL
arif.bsky.social

Caleb Wilson
https://bsky.app/profile/birdrespecter.bsky.social
https://bsky.app/profile/killthecomputer.com

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Monologue: Into The Jensenverse28 Aug 202600:08:57

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron runs through how the AI bubble has increasingly become Jensen Huang and NVIDIA feeding different companies money, and how NVIDIA’s revenue is mostly dependent on a small handful of customers being able to raise more and more debt every year.

EDITOR’s NOTE: I incorrectly say at the beginning of this that NVIDIA’s earnings were this week. They’re next week. Sorry!

Newsletter: The AI Hater’s Manifesto: https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-ai-haters-manifesto/
Bloomberg Article: https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/nvidia-500-billion-plan-envelops-164209178.html

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No, AI Is Not "Autonomously Hacking" with Cal Newport26 Aug 202601:05:27

In this week’s Better Offline, Ed talks with computer science professor and writer Cal Newport about what the recent AI hacking incidents actually mean, why we should stop referring to LLMs as AI, and what the post-bubble world looks like for LLMs.

Podcast & Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@CalNewportMedia/
Newsletter: https://calnewport.com
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Monologue: AI Hits A Wall21 Aug 202600:09:58

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron runs through how Anthropic and OpenAI’s revenue growth is decelerating, and how OpenAI’s pause on model development and collapsing economics create the very real possibility it could collapse.

EDITOR’s NOTE: I incorrectly say at the beginning of this that NVIDIA’s earnings were this week. They’re next week. Sorry!

Newsletter: What If OpenAI Dies? https://www.wheresyoured.at/what-happens-if-openai-dies/

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The AI Clown Car W/ Gamersnexus19 Aug 202600:44:51

In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by Steve Burke of GamersNexus to talk about the increasingly-delusional promises of the AI semiconductors industry, the rotten economics of LLMs, and how everything is becoming more frantic and desperate as we reach the end.

GamersNexus - There Are No Non-Clowns In The Clown Car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F33Ohjufi9k
Support GamersNexus’ AI Surveillance Dystopia Series: https://store.gamersnexus.net/ai-dystopia
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AI Creativity Doesn't Exist With Chloe Radcliffe and Ed Ongweso Jr.14 Aug 202600:45:15

In this week's Better Offline, Ed is joined by comedian Chloe Radcliffe and critic Ed Ongweso Jr. to talk about AI’s attempts to interfere with the creative arts, horrible little robots, Mark Zuckerberg’s terrible AI essay, and why we can’t respect people writing using AI.

Chloe’s Show Cheat - https://publictheater.org/performances-jp/2026/c/chloe-radcliffe-cheat/ - August 19th and 20th in NYC!
Chloe Radcliffe: https://www.instagram.com/chloebadcliffe/?hl=en
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Ed Ongweso’s newsletter https://www.thetechbubble.info/

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Monologue: NVIDIA's No IT Loads Refused Cash Dump12 Aug 202600:11:17

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron runs through NVIDIA’s entirely-theoretical $500 billion AI infrastructure partnership with various asset managers, all to keep up with analyst expectations that it will make more than $1.6 trillion in the next three years.

Chloe’s Show Cheat - https://publictheater.org/performances-jp/2026/c/chloe-radcliffe-cheat/ - August 19th and 20th
News Story: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/10/nvidia-wall-street-asset-managers-500-billion-ai-push.html 
Jensen Huang Tweet: https://x.com/JensenHuang/status/2086934705207959965?s=20 
WSJ story on Anthropic IPO: https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anthropic-tries-to-shore-up-investor-confidence-ahead-of-blockbuster-ipo-0ff736ad 

Numbers: Consensus analyst estimates for revenue for the next three years are utterly fucking insane. NVIDIA made about $216 billion dollars in fiscal year 2026 - which ended on January 25th 2026, frustratingly - and analyst expectations have it at $393.7 billion dollars in Fiscal Year 2027, or a little under doubling its revenue year-over-year. In Fiscal Year 2028, expectations are at $565.7 billion dollars, and in Fiscal Year 2029, NVIDIA is expected to make $694 billion dollars. Over 90% of its revenues come from selling GPUs and other data center hardware.

I realize that’s a lot of numbers, so I’ll put it simply: NVIDIA is expected to sell over $1.6 trillion dollars’ worth of GPUs by January 2029, and the vast majority of its customers - including hyperscalers - are having to take out hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of debt to pay for it.

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Monologue: The Pale Horsemen Arrive07 Aug 202600:16:36

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron runs through how 70% of Microsoft, Google and Amazon’s AI revenues are from Anthropic and OpenAI, with 7% of Microsoft’s FY26 revenue coming from OpenAI alone, and how this is cast-iron proof that demand for AI doesn’t exist at a scale that warrants any of the trillion dollars in capex they’ve spent.

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The AI Demand Bubble with Ed Elson05 Aug 202600:54:07

In this week's Better Offline, Ed is joined by Prof G Markets’ Ed Elson to talk about the recent slew of tech earnings, how analyst estimates show that 70% of Microsoft, Google and Amazon’s AI revenues come from OpenAI and Anthropic, and the logical endpoint of his AI bubble thesis.

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Monologue: We Live Inside A Dream, But Who Is The Dreamer?31 Jul 202600:13:12

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron runs through how the media deliberately ignores reality to hide how Microsoft, Google and Amazon’s cloud growth is near-entirely driven by Anthropic and OpenAI, and how doing so threatens the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people.

To celebrate the one year anniversary of the premium newsletter, I’m offering a sale on one-year subscriptions. Between now and midnight July 26, you can get a permanent annual rate of just $60— a $10 discount on the usual price of $70 - for life - https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/N9bqSLKBoS?ref=wheresyoured.at  

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AI Mania Is Eviscerating Global Decision-Making w/ Nik Suresh29 Jul 202600:58:42

In this week’s Better Offline, Ed is joined by writer and software engineer Nik Suresh to talk about how AI mania is eviscerating global decision-making, weakening businesses and creating a culture of fear that demands workers lie about the benefits of AI to kiss up to Business Idiots.

Nik’s blog: https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/ai-mania-is-eviscerating-global-decision-making/ 
https://hermit-tech.com/ 
Brainwash An Executive Today! https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/brainwash-an-executive-today/  

To celebrate the one year anniversary of the premium newsletter, I’m offering a sale on one-year subscriptions. I extended it exclusively for Better Offline listeners through this Sunday (the last time, for real this time), you can get a permanent annual rate of just $60— a $10 discount on the usual price of $70 - for life - https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/N9bqSLKBoS?ref=wheresyoured.at   

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Monologue: What The Hell Are The Hyperscalers Doing?24 Jul 202600:10:16

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron runs through how hyperscalers have wasted $1.1 trillion in capex on AI in a desperate attempt to sustain hypergrowth, and report on how without OpenAI’s claud spend, Microsoft Azure would’ve only grown 8% year-over-year in 2025.

The Subprime Data Center Crisis: https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-subprime-data-center-crisis/
Nik Suresh: AI Is Eviscerating Global Decisionmaking https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/ai-mania-is-eviscerating-global-decision-making/

To celebrate the one year anniversary of the premium newsletter, I’m offering a sale on one-year subscriptions. Between now and midnight July 26, you can get a permanent annual rate of just $60— a $10 discount on the usual price of $70 - for life - https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/N9bqSLKBoS?ref=wheresyoured.at

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The Cult of the Ultra-Wealthy with Ed Elson22 Jul 202600:58:47

In this week's Better Offline, Ed is joined by Prof G Markets’ Ed Elson to talk about the broken state of the stock market, the collapse of financial regulation, SpaceX’s post-IPO horror show, and how our culture conflates wealth with intelligence.

To celebrate the one year anniversary of the premium newsletter, I’m offering a sale on one-year subscriptions. Between now and midnight July 26, you can get a permanent annual rate of just $60— a $10 discount on the usual price of $70 - for life - https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/N9bqSLKBoS?ref=wheresyoured.at 

Ed Elson’s Newsletter: simplyput.profgmedia.com
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Monologue: OpenAI Could Kill SoftBank and Oracle17 Jul 202600:15:16

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron runs you through how OpenAI’s collapse could mortally wound SoftBank, throw the Paramount/Warner Brothers deal into chaos, kill Oracle, and destroy Larry Ellison’s empire.

To celebrate the one year anniversary of the premium newsletter, I’m offering a sale on one-year subscriptions. Between now and midnight July 22, you can get a permanent annual rate of just $60— a $10 discount on the usual price of $70 - for life - https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/N9bqSLKBoS?ref=wheresyoured.at

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AI Made Everything Expensive (ft. GamersNexus)15 Jul 202601:03:46

In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by Steve Burke of GamersNexus to talk about how demand for AI GPUs helped the RAM cartel make every single consumer electronic more expensive, and how bad it’ll be when things unwind.

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GamersNexus on the RAM cartel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVzeHTlWIDY

Support GamersNexus’ AI Surveillance Dystopia Series: https://store.gamersnexus.net/ai-dystopia

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Monologue: Blame AI For Making Everything More Expensive10 Jul 202600:08:12

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron runs you through how AI is inflating the price of memory across the board by diverting fab capacity to building high bandwidth memory for GPUs, and how this situation may end in disaster for everyone involved.

GamersNexus: The DRAM Cartel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVzeHTlWIDY

HBM to increase 90% Year over Year - https://x.com/pequityresearch/status/2075035164833382909?s=46

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Trashfuture x Better Offline: Goosed In The Shell08 Jul 202600:59:29

This week’s Better Offline is the first joint episode with Riley, November, Hussein from TrashFuture, covering SoftBank’s crazy annual shareholder meeting and the general collapse of the AI bubble.

Ed Zitron and the TF Crew are on both your feeds this week to discuss the Softbank slide deck breakdown you’ve all been waiting for. It’s nothing other than the goose, and whether or not the goose was valued, and what kind of factory does a goose use to make golden eggs.

Shareholder deck for following along:
https://group.softbank/media/Project/sbg/sbg/pdf/ir/investors/shareholders/2026/shareholders-meeting_46_05_en.pdf

https://trashfuture.co.uk/

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Monologue: Meta Admits It Bought Too Many GPUs03 Jul 202600:06:13

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron runs you through Meta’s plans to sell its AI compute, and how this is an admission to the grim fact that there isn’t really a reason for anyone to be building all these AI data centers.

Ed Zitron on CNBC: Generative AI's Business Model Does Not Work, And Tech Is Out Of Hypergrowth Ideas
https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/comments/1ulm3a6/ed_zitron_on_cnbc_generative_ais_business_model/

Bloomberg - Meta Is Planning a Cloud Business to Sell AI Computing Power 
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-01/meta-is-building-a-cloud-business-to-sell-excess-ai-compute

The Information - Nvidia Says It Will Take a Cut of Some Customers’ Cloud Revenues
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/nvidia-says-will-take-cut-customers-cloud-revenues?rc=kz8jh3

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The WSJ On Polymarket's Questionable Ads01 Jul 202600:34:41

In this week’s Better Offline, Ed talks with the Wall Street Journal’s Caitlin Ostroff and Katherine Long about how Polymarket is working with influencers to show videos of fake bets cashing out - and how the prediction markets have grown into a large, barely-regulated operation.

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They Looked Like They Were Getting Rich on Polymarket—but None of It Was Real - https://www.wsj.com/business/media/polymarket-social-media-bets-prediction-market-441cdeb5?st=57dR12&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink 

Caitlin Ostroff 
https://x.com/ceostroff

https://bsky.app/profile/ceostroff.bsky.social

https://www.wsj.com/news/author/caitlin-ostroff

Katherine Long
https://bsky.app/profile/klong.bsky.social

https://x.com/ByKLong

https://www.wsj.com/news/author/katherine-long

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Monologue: Tokenpocalypse Now26 Jun 202600:23:47

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron runs you through how organizations are freaking out after having to pay the real cost of AI tokens, and how the surge of competitive open weight models could lead to the post-bubble locally-run future of LLMs.

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Monologue: Silicon Valley is A Cargo Cult24 Jun 202600:08:54

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron runs you through how AI is the pinnacle of Silicon Valley monoculture, and a monument to the cargo cult desperation of a tech industry that celebrates mediocrity and has run out of ideas.

Newsletter: Cargo Culture: https://www.wheresyoured.at/cargo-culture/

OpenAI Exclusive: https://www.wheresyoured.at/exclusive-openai-financials/

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The AI Industry Must Stop Doom Trolling w/ Cal Newport19 Jun 202601:02:25

In this week’s Better Offline, Ed talks with computer science professor and writer Cal Newport about AI companies “doom trolling” consumers using scary stories about conscious computers, and how we need to make fun of the scare-mongering and ridicule the executives peddling in it.

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Cal Newport’s “Dear A.I. Companies: The Doom Trolling Needs To Stop https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/17/opinion/ai-dangerous-openai-anthropic.html 

Podcast & Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@CalNewportMedia/

Newsletter: https://calnewport.com

New Yorker archive: https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/cal-newport

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Exclusive: OpenAI Spent $34 Billion In 2025, With Losses Up 8X16 Jun 202600:04:02

In a special exclusive episode of Better Offline, Ed Zitron digs into the audited financials of OpenAI from 2024 and 2025.

Companion newsletter: www.wheresyoured.at/exclusive-openai-financials/ 

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CZM Rewind: The Rot-Com Bubble10 Jun 202600:30:52

Tech's hyper-growth era is ending, with online 100 million new people getting online between 2022 and 2023, and almost every major web platform seeing a decline in growth since 2021. In this episode, Ed Zitron walks you through how tech's decline is driving the tech industry to try and sell you useless products like the metaverse, cryptocurrency and generative AI.

Original Air Date: 6.5.24

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Monologue: AI Can't Afford To Slow Down05 Jun 202600:06:22

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron runs you through how the “does AI have ROI?” debate is coming at the worst possible time for two companies that can’t afford to slow down thanks to their $1.1 trillion in compute commitments.

Newsletter: AI Doesn’t Have ROI https://www.wheresyoured.at/ai-doesnt-have-roi/ 
Ed on Bloomberg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbKDmkJPVvI 
The AI industry's profit problem is getting bigger, says Goldman Sachs' equity research chief
https://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-sachs-ai-boom-profit-problem-semiconductor-chip-companies-investment-2026-6 
Bloomberg: AI’s Bills Are Bigger Than Ever, And Coming Due https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-06-04/the-ai-boom-s-next-test-is-the-roi-worth-the-cost 
Axios: AI sticker shock hits corporate America https://www.axios.com/2026/05/28/ai-spending-roi-enterprise-costs 
Uber COO story: https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-coo-andrew-macdonald-ai-token-spending-harder-justify-2026-5 

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Why AI Has No ROI with Paul Kedrosky03 Jun 202600:47:09

In this week’s Better Offline, Ed Zitron is joined by economist Paul Kedrosky to talk about why nobody can find the ROI of AI, why there won’t be a Dot Com Bubble-style recovery for AI data centers, and how Google’s $80bn equity sale shows we’re at the top.

https://paulkedrosky.com/

The Nick, Dick and Paul Show: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFbDiETo29GTIjg6Lk4imig

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Monologue: Everyone Suddenly Cares About AI ROI29 May 202600:11:50

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron runs you through how AI’s move to token-based billing has revealed that absolutely nobody has a way of measuring AI’s ROI - and how these massive costs might finally burst the bubble.

Companion newsletter:
https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-revenge-of-the-business-idiot/

Axios: AI sticker shock hits corporate America https://www.axios.com/2026/05/28/ai-spending-roi-enterprise-costs 

Uber COO story: https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-coo-andrew-macdonald-ai-token-spending-harder-justify-2026-5

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The AI Industry Is Losing27 May 202600:19:28

In this week's Better Offline, Ed Zitron runs you through how Uber’s COO said the quiet part out loud - that AI’s outputs and efficacy do not match up with its ruinous costs - and how despite its bluster, the AI industry’s grift is failing.

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Monologue: Anthropic Is Not Profitable Unless You Remove Its Costs22 May 202600:13:17

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron runs you through Anthropic’s claims it will be non-GAAP EBITDA profitable for Q2 2026 by having SpaceX discount its compute costs, and how said revenues don’t match up with its CFO’s sworn affidavit or previous reporting on its finances.

Companion newsletter:
https://www.wheresyoured.at/anthropics-profitability-swindle/

https://www.flyingpenguin.com/wheres-ed-anthropic-told-court-5-billion-but-public-19-billion/

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AI Versus The PC Industry With GamersNexus20 May 202600:50:08

In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by Steve Burke of GamersNexus to talk about NVIDIA’s alleged GPU shipments to China, how AI is choking the PC gaming industry, and how mad Jensen Huang keeps getting on podcasts.

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GamersNexus:
Yes, This All Seems Very Legitimate - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUbJDrL6ZfM 
Support GamersNexus’ AI Surveillance Dystopia Series: https://store.gamersnexus.net/ai-dystopia 
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Monologue: AI Is Making The Tech Industry Weak15 May 202600:22:14

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron runs you through how LLMs and the obsession with AI is actively destroying the fabric of the tech industry.

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The Insanity of the Markets with Ben & Emil13 May 202600:55:09

On this week’s Better Offline, Ed Zitron is joined by the hosts of the Ben & Emil show to talk about how the markets have been driven insane by semiconductor buzz and social media hysteria.

https://benandemilshow.com/

https://www.youtube.com/@benandemilshow

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CZM Rewind: Cory Doctorow and Ed Zitron on Enshittification and the Rot Economy06 May 202600:57:34

This week’s Better Offline is a recording of a panel held by Clarion West in Seattle earlier this year with Cory Doctorow and Ed Zitron, discussing enshittification, The Rot Economy, and the destruction of modern tech platforms, moderated by Whitney Beltrán.

Original Air Date: 11.12.25

Cory Doctorow: https://craphound.com/
Whitney Beltrán: https://brightwhitney.com/

Get involved with Clarion West: https://www.clarionwest.org/get-involved/give/

Clarion West is a nonprofit literary organization that runs an acclaimed six-week residential workshop every summer, online classes and workshops, one-day and weekend workshops, a reading series every summer, and other events throughout the year. At Clarion West, you’ll be among award-winning and best-selling writers in science fiction, fantasy, games, horror, and more. Our workshops and classes are taught by world-class instructors from across the field of speculative fiction. Wherever you may be in your career, whether novice or sage, we offer a diverse listing of classes that is packed with valuable information to take your writing to the next level.

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Monologue: AI's Compute Demand Story Is A Lie01 May 202600:18:58

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron runs through how 70-80% of Amazon and Microsoft’s AI revenue and capacity is taken up by OpenAI and Anthropic, and how capacity constraints across the industry are a result of hyperscalers sacrificing their infrastructure to the least-profitable startups of all time.

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