Down Round

Latest Episodes:

Netflix Eats Everything Dec 10, 2025

Show notes

Netflix wants to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. Paramount Skydance wants to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. Both for many billions of dollars. Why? We break down the $70 – 100 billion bids, the Ellison–Trump court politics, and why this could mark the final enclosure of the film industry by tech.

Also: James chronicles the history of film industry disruption, and Raph reveals his long-awaited top ten movies of 2025 list.

We also provide some follow-up on prediction markets after last weeks episode.

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Everything is Sportsbet Now Dec 03, 2025

Show notes

This week we're going deep on the rise of prediction markets — the hybrid of futures trading, sports gambling, and economic theology that suddenly seems to have eaten the world. Platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi are booming and an increasingly big part of both tech culture and also gambling culture.

We trace the whole arc: from Hayekian fantasies about prices revealing truth, to the far bigger truth: people just really, really like having a punt.

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The Slop Farms of X Nov 26, 2025

Show notes

This week, we open with the final chapter of Frank, the student finance startup that sold JP Morgan a fake email list. Founder Charlie Javice is in prison for fraud, but the bank is still footing a $115 million legal bill that includes everything from luxury hotels to cellulite butter.

Then we move onto Nvidia, which posted another absurd quarter with revenue up 60% year-on-year.

Then finally X’s new location feature, which exposed the global industry of rage-bait posters farming Elon’s ad-share program with US culture war posting from the Global South. As expected, everyone is responding to this normally.

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It's Just Autocomplete Nov 20, 2025

Show notes

This week we unpack a growing split inside the AI world, centred on Yann LeCun — Meta’s AI pioneer who thinks LLMs are a dead end.

Reports suggest he’s preparing to walk, after being quietly sidelined under Meta’s “superintelligence” push and made subordinate to a 28-year-old ex-data-labelling kingpin, Alexander Wang. His alternative is the “world model” approach: systems grounded in physics and perception rather than predictive text.

LET'S GOOOOOOOO.

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Apple’s Passive Income Era Nov 12, 2025

Show notes

Down Round hasn't checked in on Cupertino in a little while. This week, we take stock of Apple’s strange position in the AI boom — not really innovating very much, but quietly raking in billions as everyone else builds data centres.

From Siri’s long road to Gemini, to the cult of thinness and the ghost of Johnny Ive, we talk about how Apple keeps winning by doing less. Plus: the Vision Pro flop, new MacBook Air rumours, and Apple TV.

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Data Centres 101 Nov 05, 2025

Show notes

We realised that we've been talking a lot about data centres but have gotten pretty pointy headed about it, without bringing our beautiful listeners along for the ride. We apologise.

This episode is us pumping the brakes, going back to first principles and explaining the current data centre situation — from where they started, all the way to the current massive buildout due to the AI boom.

If you or someone you know would like to apply to be our new producer, send us an email at hi@downround.net. Include any past experience and examples of anything you've done — even if it's just your personal socials.

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Spotify for Sickos Oct 30, 2025

Show notes

Today's episode is on the back of a curious report from The Information that Suno, the AI music generation app, now brings in $150 million in annual recurring revenue. That's not Meta level, but it's not bad either.

It opens up a discussion of how the world of AI generated content is progressing, including chat about OpenAI's Sora colonising TikTok and Reels with meme videos.

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Atlas Shrugged Oct 23, 2025

Show notes

As was long predicted, OpenAI has released a browser: ChatGPT Atlas. It's a pretty clear attempt to attack Google's $100B search moat and establish a new surface for all the stuff OpenAI wants to do with agentic AI, personal assistants and all the rest of it.

But is it any good? We find out. Also, another conclusion to TIKTOK BANWATCH.

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Getting Steamy Oct 17, 2025

Show notes

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman made an interesting little announcement this week: the company has mitigated mental health concerns on its platform... and it's ready to let its users generate erotica.

Now that might seem a little strange to you. Most of the internet had a similar response, actually. In this episode, we talk more about one of our favourite pet topics — weird parasocial relationships with the computer, and how the various AI labs are treating this problem. (Or should we say opportunity?)

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Investigating The Mumgorithm (feat. Humyara Mahbub) Oct 08, 2025

Show notes

This week, Down Round is diving into the world of parenting and technology — everything from the various devices and gizmos targeted at parents, through to the algorithm that swamps your feed the moment you become a new parent.

Joining us to help us understand the deep mysteries of the mumgorithm is Humyara Mahbub of the Baby Shoes podcast, who is a world-renowned expert in ads on Instagram for crap you don't need.

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