Better Offline - The Invisible War Criminals

Episode Date: January 3, 2025

In part 2 of the 2024 Better Offline finale, Ed Zitron tells you how to fight back against the growth-at-all-costs Rot Economy and its destruction of the tech ecosystem - by pushing the media to improve their coverage, telling everybody you know who's responsible, and remembering what it is you truly love about technology. --- LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/  Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at Ed's Socials: https://twitter.com/edzitron https://www.instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com https://www.threads.net/@edzitronSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting. Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined.

Learn how podcasting can help your business. Call 844-844-I-Hart. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest,

SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Life is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness, from professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them

and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me. Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show.

This is a place for raw, unfilts of conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to The Clifford Show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. I'm Michelle McPhee, and I've been unraveling the strangest criminal alliance I've ever reported on, a Mormon polygamist and an Armenian businessman. Multi-million dollar house, Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, a billion dollar fraud. But how long can this alliance last? Tell me what you know.

Is somebody coming after me? Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Allzone Media Hello and welcome to better offline I'm your host Ed Zittron This is the finale of this year Even though you're hearing it in 2025 I need you to just mentally imagine it's 2024

I did my best okay Anyway In the last episode I talked about the scale of the rock economy And specifically the practical elements And the practical results of growth at all cost thinking And in this one I want to talk about how we fight back Ideas are powerful And things change as silly as it sounds

from the regular repetition of the names of those responsible and clear descriptions of the things they've done to us. Now, you know I've written and spoken a lot about the raw economy, how the growth at all cost mindset fucks things up, and it's what directly leads tech companies to make their products worse. But what I've tried to do in these episodes is quantify the scale, both the damage it's caused and the billions of people that affects every day. Everything I've discussed around the chaos and the pain of the internet is a result of corporations and private equity firms buying media properties and immediately trying to make them grow, each in wildly different ways, all clamoring to be the next New York Times or variety or other legacy media brand,

despite the fact that those brands already exist and the ideas for competing with them usually are built on these unsustainably large staffs and expensive consultants telling you to hire more people. Almost every single store you visit on the internet has this massive data layer on the background that feeds them data about what's popular, or where people are spending time on the sites and will turn and change things about their design to subtly encourage you to buy more stuff, trapping you there, all so that more money comes out, no matter what the cost, even if it's harder

to find the things you actually want. Even if the data isn't personalized, it's still quite powerful, and it turns so many experiences inside and outside shopping and social media and the news into these subtle, horrible manipulations. Every single, weird thing that you've experienced with an app or service online

is the dread hand of the rot economy, the gravitational pull of growth, the demands upon you, the user, to do something, something for the company. And when everybody is trying to chase growth, nobody is thinking stability. And because everybody is trying to grow, everybody sort of copies everybody else's ideas, which is why we see micro-transactions and invasive ads and annoying tricks that all kind of feel the same way in everything. Though they're all subtly different and customized just for that one app, it's exhausting. Now, for a while, I've had the rot economy compared to Corey Doctor O's excellent inshittification theory. I think it's a great time to compare and separate the two, because I think they can live together quite well.

And also, Corey is exceedingly smart, and I put a great deal of value in his thoughts. To quote Corey in the Financial Times, incitification is his theory, explaining how the internet was colonized by platforms, why all of those platforms are degrading so quickly and thoroughly, why it matters, and what we can do about it. And I'll link to these in the show notes. He describes the first three stages of the climb. First, platforms are good to their users. Then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers. Finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves.

Now, I agree with Corey on some levels, but I believe he gives far more credit to the platforms in question than they deserve, and sees far more intention or strategy than really exist. I fundamentally disagree about the business customers, even being some elevated class in the equation. As we've seen in the Google Ads trial, Google didn't really give a shit about his business customers to begin with. And they've always sought a monopoly and made things worse for whoever it needed to as a means of increasing growth. Maybe I'm just playing semantics, though. However, Corey's theory lacks a real perpetrator beyond corporations that naturally say, all right, time for some inchification. Watch this.

Again, I don't think it's that intentional. Maybe it's an effect. Maybe it's a movement. Maybe it's a naturally occurring thing. Where the rot economy separates is that growth is in and of itself the force that drives companies to enshittify. While enchittification really fits across companies and fits their neatly like Spotify and meta and their ad-focused business models, it doesn't really make sense when it comes to things where there isn't a clear split between business and consumers like Microsoft or Salesforce, because incitification is ultimately one part of the larger rot economy, where everything must grow forever, whether it's in tech or not.

And I believe the phenomenon that captures both is a direct result of the work of men like Jack Welch and Milton Friedman. Go back and listen to the shareholder supremacy if you hadn't. The rot economy is selfish and potently neoliberal. Corporations are bowed down to like gods. The powerful only seek more at all times at all costs, even if said cost, is that the company might eventually die because we burned out any value it actually has, or people are harmed constantly whenever they pick up their phone.

The rot economy is neoliberalism's true innovation, a kind of economic. cancer that really has few reasons to exist beyond more and a few justifications beyond, if we don't let it keep growing, then everybody's pensions might blow up. To be clear, Corey is for the most part right. And shittification successfully encapsulates how the modern web was destroyed in a way that nobody really has. I'm exceedingly grateful for Corey's work, and I think having him around is so good for society. I was so happy to have him on an episode a few months ago and I look forward to having him again. He's also a lovely fella. And I really think that inshittification applies in a wide-ranging way to a wide amount of tech

companies and effects. There's also a great thing in the VALTS newsletter that I'll link about inshittification within climate, for example. Corey's brilliant. However, I believe the wider problem is bigger and the costs are far greater. It isn't that everything is inshittified. It's that everybody's pursuit of growth has changed the incentive behind how we generate value in the world. And software enables a specific kind of growth lust by creating virtual nation states with their own digital despots. While laws may stop meta from tearing up people's houses surrounding its offices and one hack away, it can happily reroute traffic and engagement on Facebook and Instagram to make things an iota more profitable. And there's no government institution that's sitting around thinking,

huh, is this bad? Is this bad for people? Now, the rot economy isn't just growth at all cost thinking. It's a kind of secular religion, something to believe in that isn't really connected to anything other than more. And it's that everything and anything can be more, should be more, must be more, that we're only defined by our pursuit of more growth and that something that isn't growing isn't alive and as a result inferior. I'm not saying this is how everybody thinks, but I'm convinced that everybody is burdened by the rot economy and that digital ecosystems allow the poison of growth to find new, more destructive ways to dilute a human being to a series of numbers that can be made to grow or contract in the pursuit of capital. Almost every corner of our lives has been turned into some sort of number and increasing that number is important to us, bank account balances, sure, but also engagement numbers, followers, number of emails sent and received, open rates on newsletters,

how many times something has been viewed, all numbers set by other people that we live our lives by while barely understanding what they mean or how they alter our behavior. Human beings thrive on ways to define themselves, but metrics often rob us of our individuality. Products that boil us down to metrics are likely to fail to account for the true depth of anything we are actually doing, or anything they're actually capturing. The change in incentives towards driving more growth actively pushes out those of long-term thinking. It encourages hiring people who see growth as the driver of a company's success, and in turn investment, research and development into mechanisms of growth, which may sometimes be things that help you, but that isn't necessarily the reason

they're doing it. Organizational culture and hiring stops prioritizing people that fix customer problems or even understand them, because that's not really the priority nor how one makes a business continue to grow. And I think the rock economy is a social thing as well. We're all pushed towards growth, personal growth, professional growth, growth in our network and our societal status, and the terms of this growth, they're often set by platforms and media outlets that are in turn pursuing their own growth. And as I've discussed, the way the terms of our growth is framed is almost entirely through a digital ecosystem of warring intense and different ways of pursuing and promoting growth. Some ethical, but many not. Sociable and cultural pressure is nothing new, but the

ways we experience it are now elaborate and chaotic. Our relationships, professional, personal and romantic, a process through the fun house mirror of the platforms, changing in ways both subtle and avert based on the signals that are received from the people we care about, each one twisted and processed through the lens of a product manager and a growth hacker who may not really care about what we're doing other than that we're doing it. Changes to these platforms, even subtle ones, actively change the lives of billions of people. And it feels that we talk about it, like being online is some hobbyist pursuit rather than something that many people do more than seeing real people in the real world. I believe that we exist in a continual tension with the rot economy and the growth at all cost

mindset. I believe that the friction we feel on platforms and apps between what we want to do and what the app wants us to do is one of the most under-discussed and significant culture of phenomena, where we, despite being customers, are continually berated and conned and swindled and fucked. I believe billions of people are in active combat with their devices every day, swiping away notifications, dodging intrusive apps, agreeing to privacy policies that they don't understand, desperately trying to find an option they used that has been moved because the product manager has decided it needed to be somewhere else. I realize it's tough to conceptualize because it's so ubiquitous.

But how much do you fight with your computer and smartphone every day? How many times there's something break? How many times have you downloaded an app and found that it didn't really do the thing you wanted it to? How many times have you wanted to do something simple and found that it's actually really annoying? How much of your life is dodging digital debris, avoiding scams, ads, apps that demand permissions and endless goddamn menu options that bury the simple things that you want to do?

It's like I said, you're the victim of a scam. You've spent years of your life explaining to yourself and others that this is just how things are, accepting conditions that are inherently exploitative and abusive. You are more than likely not deficient, stupid or behind the times, and even if you are, there shouldn't be a multi-trillion dollar ecosystem built to monetize your ignorance. And it's time to start holding those responsible accountable. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite.

Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

There's the worst singer in the group. The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, uh, you only got in because you're,

Your parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard birds, right? That's the name. The Harvard Yardt, but they're open. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle-aged, one erection.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Humor me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Run a business and not think. about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad-supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined.

So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Let us show you at iHeartadvertising.com. That's iHeartadvertising.com. Jacob Kingston grew up in an isolated polygamous sect.

We were God's chosen kingdom on earth. He felt destined for greatness. So when a swaggering Armenian businessman catapults Jacob into an extraordinary world, he doesn't look back. Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, meeting the president of Turkey. I'm Michelle McPhee, and this is one of the most shocking criminal conspiracies I've ever come across. When Jacob met Levin this went to a billion dollar fraud. But with two kings from entirely different worlds, just how long can their empire survive? The largest tax investigation in American history.

You need to tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Jacob told Levan, you're ruining my life. Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Life throws hurdles big and small. The question is, how do you conquer them? On hurdle with Emily Abadi, we sit down with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness, professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions to talk about the challenges that shaped them

and the mindset that keeps them going. From the WMBA standout Kate Martin and rising hockey star Layla Edwards. If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't. Like, I've never understood that. Like, it didn't make sense in my brain. It's hard to be in spaces that no one looks like you, but don't ever feel like you don't. Don't belong. Don't let that be the reason you don't do it. An Olympic champs Gabby Thomas and Katie Ladeki.

The ability to show gold medal to someone and have their face light up and smile, that means the world to me. And that's what motivates me to win more gold medals. At our level, at this scale, like being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Because resilience isn't just about winning. It's about showing up, even when it's hard. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged.

It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days I'd put on 10 pounds, I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm fairly regularly asked why all of this matters to me so much. So as I wrap up the year, I'm going to try and answer that question and explain why it is I do what I do.

All right. I spent a lot of time alone as a kid. I wasn't popular. Actually, that isn't really accurate because that would be. suggest I, like, had friends. I didn't really had friends. I had some people I knew, like, similar people who were existed to be bullied. I'm not trying to be mordling here. I'm just describing the terms. I was insular, or scared of the world. I felt ostracized, unnoticed, that many teenagers do. And I felt like it was out of place in humanity, and it really, like,

weighed on my soul. And the only place I found any kind of community or any place I could build an identity was being online. My life was and is defined by technology, and I'm not ashamed of that. A lot of people talk about, oh, people are online too much, not even necessarily talking about me, or how the internet hurts you and it's this. And it hurts you because of the platforms, but I believe at scale, the internet is actually quite beautiful. Had social networking not come along, I'm not confident I have made many of any of the friendships I have today, or really any friendships of any kind. For the first 22 years of my life, I really struggled to make friends in the real world. For a number of reasons, many of them my fault. by the way. But I made so many online, and that became a bridge to making real friendships. I kept and I nurtured friendships indeed with people thousands of miles away. And my shyness that I had as a person became less of an issue when I could avoid the troublesome, hey, I'm a part that really got in my way. Without the internet, I'd probably be like a resentful hermit. I'd be disconnected from humanity. There'd be just these layers of scar tissue over whatever neurodivergent or unfortunate

habits I'd gain from a childhood I'm mostly spent alone. I don't want you to feel sorry for me, by the way. None of that was about me being sad. It's actually really trying to explain something joyous and that's a big part of who I am. Technology is a big part of who I am. So like I said, don't feel sorry for me. Tech allowed me to thrive. I have a business. I have an upcoming book, the newsletter. I have this podcast. I have these wonderful, beautiful friends that I deeply love. And if you're wondering if it's you, it is you. I love you. And these people have come pretty much exclusively through technology of some sort, like a social network or a result of a digital connection of some kind. And I'm immensely grateful for everything

I have, and I'm grateful that technology allowed me to live this full and happy life. And I imagine many of you feel the same way. Your frustrations aren't just about the apps being bad, but the internet has a goodness to it. It has a value. Otherwise, we wouldn't stick our hands in the box that the Ben-Egeser it gives us every morning. And Tech has found so many ways to make our lives better. Perhaps more in some cases than others. But I'm not going to lie and pretend and I don't love technology.

I think that that wouldn't serve you or serve anyone. And I think this kind of noxious, all tech's bad. It isn't all bad, but the people running it are. The rot economy has fucked up tech so badly. But in the process of doing this podcast, of writing my newsletter,

it just may be intimately aware of the gratuitous, avaricious, and intention. harm that these people are causing, that the people running the tech industry have caused to their customers and this horrifying and selfish world they've made and the ruinous consequences that followed. The things that I've watched happen this year alone, which have at times been in enumeration of about a decade of rot, they've turned my goddamn stomach. You know what's also done that? The outright cowardice of some people that claim to inform the public but choose instead to reinforce the structures of the powerful. And a little side note to my good friend Casey Newton right now. You should all go and look up

his thing about the phony comforts of AI skeptics, where he bags on Gary Marcus. Why are you bagging on Gary Marcus, Casey, you fucking coward? This piece attacked AI skeptics with the flimsyest stuff. Casey Newton has an audience of over 100,000 people that he's ostensibly informing. This stuff hurts people, having popular journalists that won't enumerate the damage being done that won't give the honest truth about things. It's disgusting. It turns my stomach and as these two-part episodes have shown you, the scale of damage done by people like Facebook, like Mark Zuckerberg, Casey's good friend. It's disgusting. Okay, wheeling that back, by the way, I don't know if they're good friends, but I know they text. Anyway, back to the show. I'll put my bitchfess aside. Look, I'm a user. I'm a guy with a podcast and a newsletter,

but behind the mic and the keyboard, I'm a person that uses the same services as you do, and I see the shit done to us, and I just feel poison in my veins. I'm not holding back, as you've kind of worked out by now, we're like 60 episodes in. And I don't think you should either. What's being done to us isn't just unfair. It's larceness. It's cruel. It's exploitative.

It's morally wrong. Some may try and dismiss what I'm saying as just social media. It's just how apps work. And if that's what you truly think, you're either a beaten dog or a willing or unwilling operative for people running a con. I will never forgive these people for what they've done to the computer, and the more I learn about both their intentions and the actions they've taken, the more certain I become that these people are unrepentant and then their greed will never be sated. I've watched them take the things that made me human, social networking, digital communities, apps, and the other connecting fabric of our digital lives, and turn them into devices of torture, profitable mechanisms of abuse, and I find it disgusting how many reporters seem to believe

it's their responsibility to thank them and explain why it's good that this is happening to their readers. And let's run down the scumbags, shall we? Sam Altman's a goddamn con artist, he's a liar and a sleazy carnival barker who would burn our planet to the ground, steal for millions of people and burn billions of dollars in pursuit of power, and I believe the same can be said of people like Dario Amadeo Vanthropic and Mustafa Suleiman of Microsoft. Tim Cook of Apple, he's a wolf in sheep's clothing. He slowly allows the rot to seep into Apple's products. Apple intelligence is goddamn awful.

It sucks. It gets in the way. The summaries suck. Image playground sucks. Everyone saying this doesn't suck is up their own asshole. They need to look. Look at the actual products. They don't work.

And they've slowly been adding these bothersome subscription options. and they chip away at the user experience, the one company that I really didn't want to do this, and yet let's take a step back to the beginning of the show. Apple's App Store, and its repeated support of exploitative micro-transaction-laden mobile games built to create gambling-like addiction in adults and children alike. They make billions of dollars off of them.

And because Apple's products are less shitty, they get a much easier time. Now, let's talk about two of my faves, my besties. Now, I hold Sondar Pishai in a certain kind of esteem, by which I believe that Sondar Pishai, Pishai of Google is the Henry Kissinger of technology, a glossy executive that escapes blame despite having caused harm on a global scale. The destruction of Google search at the hands of Sondar Pishai and Prabaghar Agavan should be written about like a war crime and those responsible treated as such. And by the way, Prabagar, if you're hearing this, hello baby. I love you. I love saying your

name and I'm going to be saying it forever. Now let's get to Microsoft. Satchin Adela has aggressively expanded Microsoft's various monopolies, the most egregious of which, by the way, is the Microsoft 365 suite, which is a monopoly over business software that everyone kind of hates, that Microsoft prices to undercut the competition, effectively setting conditions of most business software is either cheaper than Microsoft or slightly better than Microsoft. Nadela has overseen layoffs of tens of thousands of people in the last three years alone, and despite his bullshit growth mindset culture, he treats as employees and customers as equally disposable. And of course, he's the guy that has made open AI happen, which in turn means he's responsible for generative AI at scale.

And let's end with Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, who is a putrid ghoul that has overseen the growth and proliferation of some of the single most abusive and manipulative software in the world. Meta has grown to a market cap of $1.5 trillion by intentionally making the experience on Instagram and Facebook worse, intentionally frustrating and harming billions of people, actively interfering with the fabric of society. These are the people in charge.

These are the people running the tech industry. These are the people who make the decisions that affect billions of people every minute of every day, and their decision making is so flagrantly selfish and abusive that I'm regularly astonished by how little criticism they receive. These men lace our digital lives with asbestos and get told their geniuses for doing so because money comes out. But the truth is, I don't know or care whether these men know who I am or read my work because I only care that you do. I don't give a shit if Sam Orkman or Mark Zuckerberg knows my name. I don't care about their riches or their achievements. I care that when given so many resources, such privilege and such opportunity to change the world,

they chose to make it worse. These men are tantamount to war criminals, except in 30 years Mark Zuckerberg may still be seen as a success though I will spend the rest of my life telling you the damage he's caused. I care about you, the user, the person listening to this, the person that may have felt stupid or deficient or ignorant, all because the services you pay for or that monetize you have been intentionally rigged against you.

You aren't the failure, the services, the devices, and the executives are. If you cannot see the significance of the problems I discuss every week, the sheer scale of the rot, the sheer damage caused by unregulated and unrepentant managerial parasites, you are living in a fantasy world and I both envy and worry about you. You're the frog and the pot and trust me, the stove's on. 2025 will be the year of chaos, fear, and a deficit of heart. hope, but I will spend every breath I have telling you what I believe and telling you that I care and that you are not alone. For years, I've watched the destruction of the services and the mechanisms

that were responsible for allowing me to have a normal life, to thrive, to be able to speak with a voice that was truly mine. I've watched them burn or worse, turned into these abominable growth vehicles men disconnected from society and humanity. I owe my life to an internet I've watched turned into these abuse factories worth billions, if not trillions of dollars, and I've watched the people responsible get glad handled and applauded. I will scream at them into my dying fucking breath. I have had a blessed life and I'm lucky that I wasn't born even a year earlier or later. But the way I've grown up and seen things changed has allowed me to fully comprehend how much damage is being done today and how much worse is to come if we don't hold these people

accountable. The least they deserve is a spoken or written record of their sins and the least you deserve is to be reminded that you are the victim. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman, help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

There's that worst singer in the group? The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, uh, you only got in because you're, Parents made a huge donation. The group.

The yard herds, right? That's the name. The Harvard Yardt Yard. They're open. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle aged, one erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Humor me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Run a business and not thinking about podcast. Podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio.

Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Call 844-I-Hart to get started. That's 844-844-I-Hart. Jacob Kingston grew up in an isolated polygamous sect. We were God's chosen kingdom on earth. He felt destined for greatness.

So when a swaggering Armenian businessman catapults Jacob into an extraordinary world, he doesn't look back. Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, meeting the president of Turkey. I'm Michelle McPhee, and this is one of the most shocking criminal conspiracies I've ever come across. When Jacob met Levin this went to a billion-dollar fraud. But with two kings from entirely different worlds, just how long can their empire survive? The largest tax investigation in American history. You need to tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me?

Jacob told Levan, you're ruining my life. Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Life throws hurdles big and small. The question is, how do you conquer them? On hurdle with Emily Abadi, we sit down with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness, professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions to talk about the challenges that shaped them and the mindset that keeps them going. From the WMBA standout, Kate Martin, and rising hockey star, Layla Edwards.

If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't. Like, I've never understood that. Like, it didn't make sense in my brain. It's hard to be in spaces that no one looks like you, but don't ever feel like you don't. Don't belong. Don't let that be the reason you don't do it. An Olympic champs Gabby Thomas and Katie Ladeki. The ability to show a gold medal to someone and have their face light up and smile, that means the world to me. And that's what motivates me to win more gold medals.

At our level, at this scale, like being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Because resilience isn't just about winning. It's about showing up, even when it's hard. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque.

Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days I'd put on 10 pounds, I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I don't think you realize how powerful it is being armed with knowledge, the clarity of what's being done to you and why, and the names of the people responsible. This is an invisible war and a series of invisible war crimes perpetuated against billions of people in a trillion different ways every moment of every day. And it's everywhere, a constant in our lives. which makes enumerating and conceptualizing it difficult, but you can help.

You talking about the truth behind generative AI or the harms of Facebook or the gratuitous destruction of Google search will change things because these people are unprepared for a public that knows both what they've done and they're sickening, loathsome, selfish and greedy intentions. Saying Prabagar Ragavan is both very fun, try it yourself, say Prabagar Ragavan in the shower on the toilet, Prabagar Ragavan and an NFL game. And then when someone, someone says, who's Prabagovangovang? You say, well, he's the guy who destroyed Google search. No, look, I get it. It's just talking, right? But the way that people disconnect from these services and take a stand starts with the clear discussion of the problem and reframing, I don't get technology

to. Prabaggar Ragavan destroyed Google search. It spreads through groups, organizations, and governments. It gets somewhere. Most people believe it or not, don't know about the raw economy or about the people responsible, and assume they got older rather than technology getting worse. really this is a moment of solidarity. We're all harmed by the raw economy. We're all victims. And it takes true opulence to escape it. And I'm guessing you don't have it. I certainly don't. But talking about it, refusing to go quietly, refusing to slow down the slot willingly or pleasantly is enough. The conversations are getting louder. The anger is getting too hard to ignore. These companies will be forced to change through public pressure and the knowledge of their deeds

and pressure on the media outlets you read and listen to that choose willingly to prop them up. Holding these people to a higher standard at scale is what brings about change. Be the wrench in the machine. Be the person that explains to a friend why Facebook sucks now. And who chose to make it suck? Adam Masseri, by the way. It's Adam Messeri, Mark Zuckerberg, and the rest of the growth team. Naomi Glit's another great one as well.

Javier Olivan. They're all in. Go listen to the episode and tell your friends. Be the person to explain who Prabagar Ragavan is and what his role was in making Google search worse. Say his name with your friends. it to the mailman. Be the person who tells people that Sam Altman burns $5 billion a year on unsustainable software that destroys the environment and is built upon the largest scale larceny of creative works ever to happen, all because he's desperate for power. He is already a billionaire. He was

already there. Because every time you do this, you destabilize them. They've succeeded in a decades-long marketing campaign, where tech people get called geniuses for making things that are necessary to function in society, and then making them worse. You can change that. I also want to be clear, I don't give a shit if you sign me. It's cool if you say where you found it, but I really don't care. I really don't. Tell people. That's what matters.

Tell everybody. Spread the word. You yourself can be a little better offline. I don't mean that as a pun, but you know what I mean. Spread the bloody word. Say what they've done. Say their names. Say their names again and again and again so that it becomes a contagion.

They've twisted and broken and hypermonetized everything. How you make friends. How you fall in love. bank, how you listen to music, how you find information. Never let their names be spoken without disgust. Be the sandpaper in their veins and the graffiti on their fucking legacies. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of it. And if you're with me, just tell people. Don't even talk about me. I'm not important. What's important is that you know and the others know too. And you'll feel a lot of dread going into the next year. But that's what the darkness wants. That's what authoritarianism craves.

Hopelessness, emptiness and energy deficit that anchors you to the earth. And I can't promise you that I'm fixing anything with a podcast. I can't promise you what I'm saying is going to fix you in any way. But I hope it at least invigorates you. I hope it makes you feel less alone. I hope you know that others feel the way you do too, and that someone somewhere is outraged on your behalf because I am. Now we're going to get to the schmaltzy part because I have to.

I'm a big emotional guy. Last year in my life's been incredible. I've been very lucky to do this show. It's allowed me to meet wonderful people that I adore. and I'm going to talk about them now, and if you don't like it, what's wrong with you? I get so angry. Let me be happy for a moment and be happy for these people. They're absolutely wonderful. A year in, I want to thank Sophie Lichten and Robert Evans for having faith in me to do this. I stood alone in my kitchen in February, and I was like pacing around, and I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm not going to tell them because they contracted me. And I mostly worked it out as it went along, and they were extremely supportive. And I wasn't sure where I would take this, but both of them told me to go as hard as I needed to, however I wanted to. Not once have either of them said, nah, or hey Ed, I don't know about this, or Ed, can you change this? Except in one episode's case where it was actually the pilots and it needed

a re-recording, it was not good enough. But that's what they're there for. They've humoured these insane 500-word rants at like 11 p.m. on a Tuesday, where I'm like, I think that this should happen. they've taken these concept and been like, hey, why don't you do this? But fundamentally they have, and all of course own media has, been insanely supportive, both of the ideas, but also the outrage. And also the true support they've given me to do this as creative expression, but also a value generating podcast, has been incredible. And regardless of how you feel about what I do, there really isn't anything out there like better off-line. It's a result of having the kind of an army behind me, both as part of the show and these people who just show me incredible love,

who I adore so much and I'm so grateful for. And you're just going to have to sit there and let me list them. And if you don't like it, you need to tell your friends you love them instead. Pause the show, call your mom, call your friends, tell everyone you know you love them. Well, the life is short. But let's start with the thanks. I want to thank Matt Asowski, Ian Johnson and Daniel Goeburn for producing the show. Matt Asowski is the person who will hear this first,

and he also hears the cuts between where I'm sorry. swearing and I mess up really obvious words. These, they're all amazing. The actual IHart radio producers are angels, all of them. They care so much about this. Daniel Goodman, as well has been incredible getting me in the studios in New York. There's going to be a lot more of that next year, as I'm going to be in New York way more. Say hello. I of course want to thank Matt Hughes for editing these scripts and riffing on many of the ideas and supporting me unwaveringly. Matt Hughes is the fifth beetle, if they were five of us, I guess the second beetle. I don't know, but I love Matt so much.

He's a wonderful friend, but also he's as angry as I am about this shit. We cook together. It's wonderful. I also want to thank Casey Gagawa right at the top, because Casey is actually the person who really worked on the rock economy with me back in February, 2023. He has been someone who's been formative more work, love you man. I love all these people. I'm not just going to say I love you every time, but I've told all of you.

Matt Weinberger, of course, Kylie Robeson, Christina Warren, Tajana Vegnavich, Phil Broughton, Caleb Wilson, and Arif Hassan, they've all regularly helped me work ideas out, even when I'm just rambling to them in Signal. And if you're not on this list, please reach out, I'm sorry. What I'm getting at is that, look, I'm lucky to have so many wonderful people that I've been able to connect with in my life. And whatever you hear or read me say is only possible as a result of these people that have given me this strength. And all of them came from the internet. All of them came from it. All of them. them a result. Every single person I've listed there is someone I've met digitally. I'm not kissing

up to the platforms, but the concept of the internet has been so important to me. And I think it has been to you too. And the anger in my heart is that I see it being stolen from us. I see it being taken away by people who make so much money making it worse. And the forces I criticize, they don't see beauty in human beings. They don't see us as these remarkable things that generate ideas, both incredibly stupid and incredible. And they don't see talent or creativity as something that's innately human. They see it as a commodity to be condensed and monetized and replicated, so that they ultimately own whatever value we have. Something you'd only believe was possible if you were a disgusting management consultant gargoyle with no connection to real people that should be put in the carnival

prism. Look, you deserve better than what they've given you. You deserve better than what I've given you, which is why I'm going to work even harder in 2025. I'm lucky to have you. I'm so grateful. for this podcast. It's a privilege to do this, and I love hearing from you. Email me at E, that's E, Z, or Z, at better offline.com. I try and respond to every email. I have a big following on Blue Sky. That's a place to find me. I hear from a lot of people thanking me, and each time I want you to know it's extremely meaningful and I love it, and thank you. It means a great deal to me. You take it even a second out of your time, let alone the 30 minutes for this episode, however much it ends up being. I'm really lucky and I'm I hope I'm helping and I'll continue to try. I'll continue to do my best here.

Look, wanky as it sounds, this has been a very personal journey. The last year has been personally and professionally crazy for me, but also digging through all of the tech industry, trying to work out why Facebook's bad, Instagram's bad, Google's bad. I did this because I did not understand. You hear on this podcast me working things out. You hear my personal journey with technology and the fact that my life is technology. My life's kind of chaotic, but a lot of that chaos is reined in by technology by being able to digitally handle things. I don't know what I'd do without it. I write nine words per minute. My hand physically hurts. I don't know how I'd get by without the digital connections I have. I don't know what I would do without this. And I don't know if you feel the same.

I don't know. And maybe I'm strange for being so online. I don't mean extremely online in the performative sense. Like, I'm on Tumblr and I can tell you what memes are popular. I mean, I'm online talking to my friends. I'm online dicking around on blue sky. I'm online writing business emails or writing scripts. It's how my life has been. It's how I've done everything. It's how I've got everything. And I'm so grateful for it. And then this last year, I've just been constantly reading the people sending emails to each other, celebrating how much worse it's got, how much more profitable it is, and seeing journalists that actively see these people acting this way, these people who are either making platforms worse or making things that don't work very well

that burn the environment, that burn billions of dollars of cash, and clapping and being like, oh, sir, oh, Mr. Altman, you're so good. Oh, Mr. Amadai, please give me more broken anthropic products. I need them, and it's fucking sickening to me. Build a real internet. Build something that matters. Help people be stronger, be better, have deeper connections. Not this rot economy bullshit. And I know I'm a dramatic person and I'm not going to get less dramatic.

I'm sorry. If anything, it's going to get more dramatic. But the outrage and emotion you hear in me is because I've watched something that formed me as a person get destroyed. Or poisoned. Toxins dumped on top of it. its users forced to slurp it down. And it pisses me off. It pisses me off because, as I've said in these two episodes,

you can really see the scale at which the rot economy hurts people. But also, like I said, this is a personal journey. Even though it's a business thing with like numbers and such, economic analysis and all this, a lot of it's me trying to work out why something I love is being hurt. Well, the tech industry that really gave me my life is run by people who don't seem to care about technology or the people it serves.

It fills me full of anger because there's goodness here. There's greatness here. The people I hear from every week, even every day now. I'm really lucky. I do so I hear from them because of the internet. They managed to get through the noise to me, and it's lovely, and I'm so grateful. I promise you the next year is going to be wild. I'm going to put my all into it.

The first week of January, you're going to get the most insane. sane CES coverage. Me, Edward on Grasso Jr. And David Roth of Defecta will be on the floor. We will have two episodes a day, an hour and a half each, with a rotating cast of different people,

including Robert Evans and Gair Davis. You're going to have some really fun coverage of the show. But what CES is going to mean every year going forward is a bubble of sorts. A bubble of how everyone's feeling about technology. I don't think they're feeling good. But know this, listener. You're who I care about.

Don't care about the tech people. I care about the tech and how it helps you. And if it hurts you, I want to hurt it back. Thank you so much for listening to last year. I can't believe how far this show's gone, but I want to work my ass off to make it even bigger and better for you. Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Mattosowski.

You can check out more of his music and audio projects at Mattisowski.com. M-A-T-T-O-S-K-I-com. You can email me at E-Z at Better Offline.com or visit Better Offline.com to find more podcast links and, of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat. Where's Your Ed dot at to visit the Discord and go to R-S-Better-O-Line to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening. Better Offline is a production of Coolzone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, CoolzoneMedia.com, or chat.

Check us out on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel. and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Life is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness from professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions, about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple, podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Presented by Capital One, founding partner of I Heart Women's Sports. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Cliford Show.

This is a place for raw, unfills of conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrate. So let's get to it. Listen to the Clifford show on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok podcast network on TikTok. I'm Michelle McPhee, and I've been unraveling the strangest criminal alliance I've ever reported on. A Mormon polygamist and an Armenian businessman. Multi-million dollar house, Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, a billion dollar fraud.

But how long can this alliance live? Tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential.

Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days I'd put on 10 pounds, I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.