Down Round

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The New York Times vs OpenAI: Whoever wins, we lose Jan 09, 2024

Show notes

Over the Xmas break, the New York Times announced it would be suing OpenAI for copyright infringement, alleging that its GPT platform is trained on copyrighted NYT content. This has become a problem, according to the NYT, because OpenAI is now a direct competitor.

We dive into the lawsuit, and chat a bit about the media, AI and what the future of content looks like. If you're holding out for the last episode of The Down Round Experience... fear not, it's coming this week.

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The Down Round Experience Pt. 4: Happy New Year Jan 02, 2024

Show notes

Happy New Year! We trust you're all well. Today, we're looking back on the 2023 that was – diving into some of the episodes we recorded and checking in how those things landed at the end of the year. These include:

Afterpay/BNPL
Crypto and NFTs
Tech layoffs
Instant groceries
Dating apps

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The Down Round Experience Pt. 3: Enter the Shark Tank (ft. Joyride) Dec 28, 2023

Show notes

This is part 3 of Down Round's Christmas and New Years production, all recorded in one session. To get every part, sign up to Premium here.

The Down Round Community is overflowing with geniuses. The next trillion dollar company will no doubt be founded by someone who is currently paying us $7 a month, representing one of the highest ROI investments anyone could make.

For today's episode of the Down Round Experience, we're taking your pitches. Our Discord community came with the ideas, and we're evaluating them in the inaugutal Down Round Shark Tank. Joining us is producer and musician Joyride (Rowan Dix) from The Meeting Tree, whose enterpreneurial nous fills out the panel.

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The Down Round Experience Pt. 2: Hack the planet (PREVIEW) Dec 27, 2023

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This is part two of our marathon holiday record. This is a preview – the full episode is available for premium subs. Sign up here.

The Down Round holiday episodes continue. As the beers continue to flow, we turn our critical attention to another major tech event of December: the hack and leak of Insomniac Games, a first-party developer owned by Sony.

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The Down Round Experience Pt. 1 - Bird, Figma/Adobe, and how we make this damned thing Dec 23, 2023

Show notes

Welcome to our holiday special.

We have recorded a marathon 4 hour podcast with much holiday spirit (we got drunk), and will be dropping it in parts throughout the holiday season.

We started with a quick reflection on the latest news: Bird Scooters has gone under, and Adobe's planned acquisition of Figma has collapsed.

Plus, due to listener demand, we explain our not particularly complex recording and editing process.

Our original Adobe episode.

Descript audio/video editor

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The 10 Biggest Companies In The World Dec 19, 2023

Show notes

We had it all planned out. A huge Xmas bonanza episode featuring guests, fun, laughs and all you could ever want from a Down Round variety show.

But then Raph was struck by a mystery illness and we had to delay it by several days. So, until then, enjoy this delightful backup episode where we dig into the world's biggest companies by market cap, and opine on our future. It isn't financial advice. But we would not blame you if you took it that way.

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iMessage: Visiting the green bubble leper colony (PREVIEW) Dec 14, 2023

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This is a preview of a premium post. To subscribe and get the full episode, go here.

For many years, Apple has enforced iPhone dominance by refusing to adopt modern text messaging standards, meaning group chats and multimedia messages between iPhones and Android devices has been fundamentally broken. But last month, Apple announced it would adopt the RCS standard.

But at the same time, it came down hard on Beeper Mini, an app which purported to bring the locked down iMessage experience to Android. In this ep, we dive into iMessage and the weird politics of the green bubble.

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Google Has Another Red Hot Go At AI Dec 12, 2023

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Poor Google. What used to be possibly the best business in human history has taken a few heavy body blows after the rise of generative AI, with the folks in Mountain View no longer looking like the obvious winners of the internet age. Though they were instrumental in building our current AI moment, companies like OpenAI are hogging the limelight.

But they've been trying to wrestle that crown back. This month, Google announced Gemini, the model it hopes will challenge OpenAI. But will it? It already seems like it won't be that easy. We discuss.

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The X Advertising Apocalypse (PREVIEW) Dec 07, 2023

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You probably know the story by now. Elon Musk replied positively to a weirdo's anti-Semitic post, which led to an advertiser exodus and Elon melting down at the New York Times DealBook conference. Now, X seems increasingly loaded up with crap tier chum advertising, which is never usually a good sign for a platform.

Is the company spiralling? Is it at death's door? Who knows, but it's fun to talk about with friends.

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The Return of Sam Altman Dec 05, 2023

Show notes

We last updated you on the OpenAI drama a couple of weeks ago, right in the middle of it. Back when it looked like Sam Altman was gone, and the future of AI was up in the air.

Ah well! Now that the dust has settled, we're reflecting on what we know about what went down, internet arguments about accelerationism vs decelerationism, and what the near future might hold for OpenAI and AI generally.

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