Uncovering patterns of change in media, culture, and technology, each week media veterans Brian Morrissey, Alex Schleifer and Troy Young break down stuff that matters. Get our newsletters: https://www.peoplevsalgorithms.com/ https://www.therebooting.com/ www.peoplevsalgorithms.com
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Nov 13, 2026 · 1:43:22
Brian, Troy and Alex dig into the undoing of Jensen Huang: the spy angle, the idiocy of sexy time at corporate events and the second-order effects of the toppling of such a…
Nov 6, 2026 · 1:23:35
Democrats take Congress, Texas flips, and the Trump-era “terrarium” that media, finance and tech climbed into starts to crack. Winners: the AI decels, after voters rejected data…
Oct 30, 2026 · 1:41:59
Troy and Brian dig into what happens when AI stops imitating Odie as the overly eager helper and starts owning the workflow, the coordination and the organizational memory, why a…
Oct 23, 2026 · 1:04:08
We dig into Claude Duet, Meta’s Muse and the rest of the new assistants that suggest before you ask, why Muse’s retention numbers look shaky, and what happens to businesses built…
Oct 16, 2026 · 1:01:47
An anonymous developer used Claude to ship open-source clones of Adobe’s big five, then Word, Excel, Keynote, AutoCAD and Figma within days, and the lesson is that software is a…
Oct 9, 2026 · 59:18
This week we dig into how much of the economy is built on friction, and what happens when AI agents start removing it. Also: why students are so gloomy about AI, Vanity Fair’s…
Oct 2, 2026 · 1:19:20
Brian, Troy and Alex debate who will control the interface to your life, whether convenience will steamroll privacy concerns, and how the winner gets to collect a toll on…
Sep 25, 2026 · 1:20:00
Brian and Troy dig into Muse, Meta’s push to make AI assistants mainstream, and why the next big platform battle is over the interface itself. They also look at what this shift…
Sep 18, 2026 · 1:12:44
Brian and Troy map the whole cast: who's the wizard, who's the arms dealer, who's the schoolyard bully, and who gets stuck playing the citizens of King's Landing who never asked…
Sep 11, 2026 · 1:20:28
They debate warnings from Anthropic researchers that AI could kill humanity, whether anyone can credibly calibrate those risks and whether a visible catastrophe will be required…
Sep 4, 2026 · 1:17:47
We look ahead to the release of GTA 6 while tackling the implications of the doomsday sci-fi AI narrative, the use of social cost to coerce behaviors, and how giant sports events…
Aug 28, 2026 · 1:33:07
Dolly Parton owned a very American narrative of being born poor but making something out of nothing through talent and hard work. In contrast, tech tried to control its narrative…
Aug 21, 2026 · 38:19
What replaced it is an algorithmic entertainment machine where everyone is selling something, AI makes authenticity harder to trust, and the platforms increasingly have little to…
Aug 14, 2026 · 1:01:49
Suno makes real songs harder to tell from fake. Launch videos are coming across as fake — and the engagement is fake. Drawing the line between creative tool and robot authorship…
Aug 7, 2026 · 1:03:06
They take risks, they’re fueled by rejection, they know the power of relationships, they’re competitive and they will do shots. The best sellers follow the way of Catalan…
Jul 31, 2026 · 57:45
This week we unpack Silicon Valley’s latest AI power struggle, asking whether the battle over open models is really about competition or about taking down Anthropic. We also…
Jul 24, 2026 · 1:16:31
Publishers see the writing on the wall for traffic-based models and are instead looking to experiential gatherings that bring together communities. We discuss why events are…
Jul 17, 2026 · 1:29:19
AI should eliminate the need for human content aggregation, yet it's still going strong, as seen by the influential subscriber base of News Items and popularity of…
Jul 10, 2026 · 1:19:15
This week, we discuss why the AI safety narrative is shifting from doomerism to the risk of AI eliminating both companies’ and individuals’ alphas, or what makes them unique and…
Jul 3, 2026 · 1:10:49
We dig into the tangled collision of journalism and the creatory economy. Emily Sundberg’s Zuckerberg interview, Brian’s christening as the Matt Belloni-of-advertising , and why…
Jun 26, 2026 · 59:14
This week’s episode leans heavily into Cannes, which is a world where everyone is selling and many are lying. Creators are the cool kids of Cannes, while the site of a drone show…
Jun 19, 2026 · 1:06:27
We debate whether Anthropic painted itself in a corner with its safety messaging, if Snap Specs pass the taste test, Elon as American icon, and the World Cup and Trump’s UFC…
Jun 12, 2026 · 1:22:38
Seen one way, AI has democratized the creative process. Seen another, we are swimming in a sea of mediocrity that inevitably crowds out attention to human-led creativity. Plus:…
Jun 5, 2026 · 1:17:13
ChatGPT is advertising it as a souped-up Clippy to help with date-night recipes and sibling road trips. What happened to superintelligence and curing cancer? Disruptive forces…
May 29, 2026 · 1:18:14
We debate the commodification of the human experience, why the upside-down token economics is a more pressing near-term concern, the religious zeal behind SpaceX's valuation, and…
May 22, 2026 · 58:42
This week, we discuss the chaotic transition to an AI-augmented era, the roiling backlash trying to slow it down, and how we’ll come to terms with a weird new world. Plus: The…
May 15, 2026 · 1:10:02
Meanwhile, Anthropic is on a $50 billion run rate and raising at a $900b valuation. We look back to the dawn of the assembly line, when workers suffered from “Forditis," a…
May 8, 2026 · 1:02:33
While some of this is cover for overhiring during the ZIRP era, there's clearly a move to cut the "coordination tax" that exists within companies. And what starts in tech always…
May 1, 2026 · 1:05:53
This week we dig into how the clip has become the unit of cultural currency and whether it's creating a mass delusion about what people actually want and what is popular. Also: a…
Apr 24, 2026 · 1:15:35
Troy’s vibe coding project has moved into high gear, as institutional and personal memory becomes the point of leverage with media’s ultimate goal shifting to how to get the…
Apr 17, 2026 · 1:06:28
Troy unveils his vibe-coded media system that produces a daily briefing based on his entire media diet, underpinned with a memory layer that acts as a second brain of PvA…
Apr 10, 2026 · 1:13:48
B2B is a refuge; see the Acquired ad rates. The Boston Globe's TikTok star Emily Sweeney proves a Dorchester accent is leverage when the internet has flattened everything. The…
Apr 3, 2026 · 1:18:25
Troy and Brian react to OpenAI buying TBPN: It pays to have viewpoints and approaches that are preferred by the powerful. FeedMe's Emily Sundberg joins as a guest this week. We…
Mar 27, 2026 · 1:06:56
OpenAI is pivoting to the enterprise, Kentucky farmers are modern folk heroes by not selling their land for a datacenter, and Meta and YouTube get the Big Tobacco treatment.…
Mar 20, 2026 · 1:23:27
But physiotherapists still use accountants, dentists are in great shape and our own vibe coding experiments run into snags. Plus: The return of Travis Kalanick and the Mount…
Mar 13, 2026 · 1:09:10
YouTube became a $550 billion juggernaut by building the infrastructure: the algorithm, the ad stack, the creator revenue share, the living room app. It spent more on content…
Mar 6, 2026 · 59:09
Block’s 40% employee purge says more about Jack Dorsey’s CEO skills than AI. David Zaslav gets only a PE golf clap for making Warner Bros shareholders money. McDonald’s CEO…
Feb 27, 2026 · 1:07:22
Data shows widespread trepidation over the AI, whether it’s datacenter construction or possible job displacement, yet little public discussion has taken place. We discuss how…
Feb 20, 2026 · 1:04:34
They unpack the "orality thesis" and what the shift from written to spoken culture means for how we think, communicate, and vote. On the media side, they map out what's actually…
Feb 13, 2026 · 1:00:50
The age of AI is off to a shambolic start. Anthropic and OpenAI ran Super Bowl ads that fell flat. The gap is widening between the AI-pilled true believers and the Normals, as AI…
Feb 6, 2026 · 1:02:20
Meanwhile, brands are facing reputational crises from their ties to the government as Scott Galloway calls for a boycott of companies who sell their products to ICE. Jeff Bezos’…
Jan 30, 2026 · 1:12:58
Today’s mind control comes in the form of black-box algorithmic recommendation systems, autonomous robotics and agentic AI systems. The trust gap has arrived for algorithms, as…
Jan 23, 2026 · 1:18:08
This week, like old Italian men with their hands clasped behind their backs at construction sites, we are monitoring various situations: Snowmageddon 2026, OpenAI’s inevitable…
Jan 16, 2026 · 1:00:12
After two decades of scale chasing, feed optimization, and platform dependence, the industry is rediscovering older mechanics that actually work: events, newsletters,…
Jan 9, 2026 · 1:07:08
Troy and Brian talk about agentic advertising and why it’s being sold as salvation, the quiet consolidation happening across media and tech, and the shift from institutional…
Dec 19, 2025 · 1:07:28
This week, we wrap up the year with our picks for the biggest narratives, deal guys, hustlers and tech oligarchs. * Watch us on YouTube * Troy Young’s People vs Algorithms…
Dec 12, 2025 · 1:14:20
Underneath the narrative, the main plotline is the end of Hollywood’s already ailing business model built around scarcity and cable economics. That’s why the big winner of this…
Dec 5, 2025 · 1:08:38
This week, Sam Altman shutters side quests to chase speed, reliability, and personalization, and we ask whether he’s a deals guy or a wartime leader in a world where Gemini 3 and…
Nov 28, 2025 · 1:02:52
We get into why America attracts them, how the term was coopted and branded, why competitive instinct sits at the center of real hustle, and how the changing nature of the…
Nov 21, 2025 · 52:13
With institutions losing their distribution edge, main-character energy now determines who captures attention. The Olivia Nuzzi spectacle to Michael Wolff’s improbable Epstein…
Nov 14, 2025 · 1:09:20
We argue that true media people are troublemakers with taste. They’re people who understand narrative, tension, and how to make others feel something. Michael Wolff and Olivia…
Nov 7, 2025 · 58:10
Meanwhile, the New York Times has proven to the exception to the rule in publishing, as most publishers are dealing with “toxic” pageview assets. Plus: The Great Compression has…
Oct 31, 2025 · 59:20
Plus: Anonymous Banker breaks down the logic of Warner Brothers Discovery’s sale, why celebrity investors are rarely additive, and the extractive logic of AOL’s $1.5b sale. *…
Oct 24, 2025 · 1:04:59
This week, Alex has a hard stop, AB is lost in Tokyo, and Brian and Troy go deep on sovereignty — who has it, who’s lost it, and whether it’s even possible to get it back for…
Oct 17, 2025 · 1:02:34
This week, we talk about how the information space rewards vibes over verification, the second-order effects of video swallowing social media, and how institutions lost the…
Oct 10, 2025 · 53:17
This week, we talk about Anthropic’s humanist branding, the fading idea of cool in a fractured culture, and why Gen Z’s nostalgia for the analog world might be the real…
Oct 3, 2025 · 57:25
Sora 2’s selfie-movies, Meta’s Vibes, and OpenAI’s Pulse point to shorter, agentic, video-first habits—and a shrinking role for text. Even The New York Times is saying…
Sep 26, 2025 · 1:02:04
Plus: the evolving role of communications officers in the information wars, OpenAI’s new Pulse, Kimmel’s comeback, and the New York Times’ super app ambitions. * Watch us on…
Sep 19, 2025 · 1:01:27
This week: Trump’s war on the media expands and intensifies; AI doomers vs AI maximalists; and Anonymous Banker on what’s behind the Puck-Air Mail deal. * Watch us on YouTube *…
Sep 12, 2025 · 1:03:21
We talk about how fandom now powers news, why comedians have turned into pundits, and how combat dynamics are incentivized by the feed. We also explore the blurring of media and…
Sep 5, 2025 · 1:11:40
Troy surveys the media landscape and finds a rich buffet of options and many admittedly smaller models that are working just fine, notwithstanding the gloom that shrouds large…
Aug 29, 2025 · 1:05:23
Plus: the demise of cultural criticism, publishers embracing apps again, and an activist investor taking on The New York Times. * Watch us on YouTube * Troy Young's People vs…
Aug 22, 2025 · 1:08:00
We start with Charlie Warzel’s essay in The Atlantic, “AI Is a Mass-Delusion Event” , a sober reframing of where we are with AI right now. Pablos insists LLMs are “average…
Aug 15, 2025 · 47:20
Plus: the case for media cooperatives and aperitivo, and why running agencies inside publishers is tough. * Watch us on YouTube * Troy Young's People vs Algorithms newsletter *…
Aug 8, 2025 · 55:39
We explore how new tools like Snipd and AI chat bots promise frictionless access to knowledge, but may be trading comprehension for convenience. Along the way: the slow death of…
Aug 1, 2025 · 1:16:25
These aren’t companies operating in a different industry than media; they’re different universes. They’re hoarding compute, restarting nuclear reactors, and offering $1 billion…
Jul 25, 2025 · 1:07:04
As the old order gives way, the contours of the new media world are coming into view: video and audio are eating text, performance and participation are mandatory, individuals…
Jul 18, 2025 · 1:06:53
The valuation is a classic bet on potential vs reality, as Substack’s execution has been spotty. We unpack the bet on creating an OnlyFans-like network, presumably with less…
Jul 11, 2025 · 58:41
The real issue isn’t that AI killed media. It’s that the old distribution ecosystem has broken down. Plus: the end of Demand Media and Linda Yaccarino’s tenure as X CEO; the…
Jul 4, 2025 · 1:00:50
This week, we talk about the collapse of traditional advertising, the rise of memetic political communicators like Zohran Mamdani, why words might not matter much longer, and…
Jun 27, 2025 · 54:47
Plus: the AI disconnect in Cannes, Momdani’s media savvy and the case for European fruits and park’s supremacy. * Watch us on YouTube * Troy Young's People vs Algorithms…
Jun 20, 2025 · 45:31
We take a mostly optimistic view of publishing in the AI era, even if Neil allows that search traffic will inexorably trend to zero. Plus: A path to publisher leverage against AI…
Jun 13, 2025 · 1:04:26
Alex reviews the “liquid” interface and wonders if anyone at Cupertino actually used the beta outdoors. Plus: a spirited defense of Zaslav as the media's embattled savior,…
Jun 6, 2025 · 47:26
As performance metrics grow murky and traditional advertising falters, proximity is becoming the new proxy for value. We talk through the bloated conference circuit, the rise of…
May 30, 2025 · 1:18:08
It used its dominant position in search to be the arbiter for the web. As the web moves into an agentic AI era, we break down how Google is positioned and the impact its next…
May 23, 2025 · 1:04:44
In this episode, we dive into how the rise of AI agents and new protocols is replacing browsing with prompting, and pages with machine-readable interfaces. Google and Microsoft…
May 16, 2025 · 1:07:27
Plus: we learn that Alex is no David Zaslav because he doesn’t see the genius in a CNN weather app, an appraisal of Airbnb’s “everything” app, and a celebration of kookiness of…
May 9, 2025 · 1:08:38
We unpack Google’s search reinvention, publishers acting like a deer in the highlights, Perplexity’s emergence as a heel, Apple’s AI misfires, and the risks of AI reinforcement…
May 2, 2025 · 1:24:05
* Watch us on YouTube * Troy Young's People vs Algorithms newsletter * Brian Morrissey's The Rebooting newsletter * Alex Schleifer's Human Computer * Follow Alex , Brian and Troy…
Apr 25, 2025 · 1:11:18
From TBPN to Turpentine, it’s not journalism—it just looks like it. They also explore the “Chaos Economy” through Foxconn’s EV pivot and unpack why analogies beat logic in…
Apr 18, 2025 · 1:09:56
This week we dig into the spread of hyperpunditry and why the Information Space rewards those who confidently switch lanes with abandon. Plus: AI’s bottoms-up adoption curve,…
Apr 11, 2025 · 1:14:49
The tariff wars kicked off and confirmed that we are in a post-expertise era where your bona fides matter less than your confidence. Plus: celebrating GDPR’s impending demise.…
Apr 4, 2025 · 1:17:51
Gawker Media founder Nick Denton joins the show to discuss how narratives and memes run the world, and why it’s better to trade on them than run the old media playbook of the…
Mar 28, 2025 · 57:35
We dig into the idea of taste—how it’s formed, how it signals identity, and where it fits in media and business today. We also unpack how taste once defined media gatekeepers,…
Mar 21, 2025 · 1:12:51
The media industry, like politics, has been stuck in a scarcity mindset—managing decline instead of building for the future. In this episode, we dig into The Abundance Agenda,…
Mar 14, 2025 · 1:03:19
AI is giving rise to vibe coding while old conventions fall away. Thinking on your feet is now more important than rehearsed, polished presentation, which soon can be done with…
Mar 7, 2025 · 1:11:29
Online education company Chegg is suing Google for AI Overviews and might become the first major company felled by AI. We go over the hitlist of others at risk of getting…
Feb 28, 2025 · 44:14
Troy’s at “advanced” tennis camp, so Brian and Alex discuss the shifting dynamics of the newsletter and video game markets. Newsletters are entering into bubble territory, while…
Feb 21, 2025 · 1:24:51
Media has never been neat, but it’s getting messier. This week, Brian and Troy explore how AI is reshaping the creative process, how different personality-driven brands thrive on…
Feb 14, 2025 · 1:05:01
This week, we examine the great realignment as tech and government unite to assert US tech dominance over ideas of digital sovereignty. Meanwhile, BuzzFeed plans its own social…
Feb 7, 2025 · 1:08:29
This week, on the heels of OpenAI releasing Deep Research, we assess whether AI has caught on with regular people beyond kicking the tires on ChatGPT. Maybe the AI Super Bowl ads…
Jan 31, 2025 · 1:12:38
The nature of work and careers is undergoing profound changes that are often obscured by debates over return-to-work mandates. This week we consider the rise of decentralized…
Jan 24, 2025 · 1:03:14
Our tech overlords reported for duty to Washington while Troy perused the powder at Davos. This week, we go beyond first principles to consider the second-order impact of a…
Jan 17, 2025 · 1:07:33
Economic growth requires labor productivity. We all aspire, in our own ways, to be productive, if only because our productivity is directly tied to our rewards. Yet American…
Jan 10, 2025 · 1:03:42
This week, we discuss Mark Zuckerberg’s craven capitulation on content moderation, even if it was an inevitable decision; the upside of algorithmic rabbit holes vs the downside…
Jan 3, 2025 · 55:47
This week, we discuss the outlook in 2025 for legacy media (not great), alternative media (much better), chat as a new media mode, X emerging as a critical power center, and…
Dec 20, 2024 · 1:11:24
Podcasting challenges late nite, lying in media, shopping as content, super consumers and Alex rediscovers America at Disney. Watch us on YouTube Troy Young's People vs…
Dec 13, 2024 · 1:08:27
Tech has swallowed media, and is increasingly swallowing other industries and accruing power along the way. Plus: why adding a chatbot won’t save the article page, the real…
Dec 6, 2024 · 1:09:09
Prediction market + news; media’s bifurcating star system; media’s management-labor divide; AI + browsers; car talk; LinkedIn cringe Watch us on YouTube Troy Young's People vs…
Nov 29, 2024 · 1:08:53
This week: The internet comes to life as spectacle, Elon proclaims you are the media, why publishers need to get to the transactional level, and an assessment of a new MAGA…
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