Business, Spoken

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Think the Internet Is Polarized? Just Look at the FCC These Days Mar 01, 2017

Show notes

Earlier this month, in a classic late Friday afternoon news dump, the Federal Communications Commission announced a rollback of two key decisions made during theObama administration. In another era, few besidespolicy wonks and internet activists would have noticed such a thing. But these changes drew intense attention. These days, politics isn’t just what happens on the internet—it’s what happens to the internet.

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The Internet Made ‘Fake News’ a Thing—Then Made It Nothing Feb 28, 2017

Show notes

Ascourge is killing people’s minds, according to Apple CEO Tim Cook, and the world needs a massive campaign to stop it. Across the nation, people lament its rise, and the threat it poses to America.Opioids? ISIS? Nope. “Fake news.” Even homicidal dictators agree things have gotten out of control.

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The Math Behind Trump’s Deportation Plan Makes No Sense Feb 27, 2017

Show notes

President Trump claims his administration’s new and expansive executive order on undocumented immigrants is “getting really bad dudes out of this country.” But aggressive enforcement of immigration laws is also sweeping up vulnerable, far-from-bad people seeking help and care. Still, even setting aside the humanitarian issue, Trump’s anti-immigrant plan suffers from a fundamental flaw: bad math.

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Republicans Are Trying to Let Internet Providers Sell Your Data Feb 24, 2017

Show notes

The Affordable Care Act is far from the only Obama-era policy Republicans want to take down now that they control the government. A set of internet privacy rules passed by the Federal Communications Commission last year has also become a target. Though it’s received far less attention than healthcare or immigration, the rollback would affect millions of consumers and bring basic changes to how they use the internet—though they might not ever know it.

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Tech Still Doesn’t Take Discrimination Seriously Feb 23, 2017

Show notes

The tech industry isn't big on dress codes, employee handbooks, or rules. The Silicon Valley management philosophy is simple: Hire talented coders, give them tools to do their jobs, and get out of their way. The best coders should be rewarded, and those who just can't hack it should be let go. The problem is that, all too often, workplace problems boil down to more than just code. Yesterday widely respected programmer Susan J.

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An AI Hedge Fund Created a New Currency to Make Wall Street Work Like Open Source Feb 22, 2017

Show notes

Wall Street is a competition, a Darwinian battle for the almighty dollar. Gordon Gekko said that greed is good, that it captures “the essence of the evolutionary spirit.” A hedge fund hunts for an edge and then maniacally guards it, locking down its trading data and barring its traders from joining the company next door. The big bucks lie in finding market inefficiencies no one else can, succeeding at the expense of others. But Richard Craib wants to change that.

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The Sad Way Trump’s War with CNN Could Keep Cable Cheaper Feb 21, 2017

Show notes

This week, President Trump’s senior advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner reportedly met with Time Warner executives to complain about CNN’s coverage of the president. Any visit from a White House official seeking to stifle journalists is disturbing. But Time Warner, which owns CNN, has another problem that’s all tied up in presidential politics. The cable and entertainment giant is seeking to sell itself to AT&T, a mega-merger that would require federal approval.

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Mark Zuckerberg’s Answer to a World Divided by Facebook Is More Facebook Feb 20, 2017

Show notes

When I ask Mark Zuckerberg if the presidential election changed the way he sees Facebook—if he made poor assumptions, if Facebook functioned in ways he didn’t intend—he pauses. I’ve interviewed Zuckerberg before, and he tends to pause like this, gathering his thoughts in complete silence, sometimes turning to face the empty space across the room. But this dead air lasts particularly long. Five seconds. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.

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Spanner, the Google Database That Mastered Time, Is Now Open to Everyone Feb 17, 2017

Show notes

About a decade ago, a handful of Google’s most talented engineers started building a system that seems to defy logic. Called Spanner, it was the first global database, a way of storing information across millions of machines in dozens of data centers spanning multiple continents, and it now underpins everything from Gmail to AdWords, the company’s primary moneymaker. But it’s not just the size of this creation that boggles the mind.

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Edward Snowden’s New Job: Protecting Reporters From Spies Feb 16, 2017

Show notes

This story is part of our special coverage, The News in Crisis. When Edward Snowden leaked the biggest collection of classified National Security Agency documents in history, he wasn’t just revealing the inner workings of a global surveillance machine. He was also scrambling to evade it.

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