PODCAST

Down Round

The number one podcast about tech business and culture, from James "JR" Hennessy and Raph Dixon.

technology

All Episodes

54:46

Apple’s Passive Income Era

Down Round ·

2025/11/12

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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy

52:35

Spotify for Sickos

Down Round ·

2025/10/30

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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

41:42

Atlas Shrugged

Down Round ·

2025/10/23

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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

52:00

Investigating The Mumgorithm (feat. Humyara Mahbub)

Down Round ·

2025/10/08

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 theBaby Shoes podcast, who is a world-renowned expert in ads on Instagram for crap you don't need.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

37:13

Meta Glasses, Again

Down Round ·

2025/09/25

We all know that Meta wants to replace the smartphone with smartglasses, and be the king of the AI device game. Well, they're one step closer to their sci-fi dream with the announcement of theMeta Rayban Display. In this ep, we dive into the announcement, and how things are coming together on the device front for Zuckerberg and Co.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

38:15

Consulting the Oracle

Down Round ·

2025/09/18

Oracle. Unless you're a big database guy, it's probably not a company you're going to be all that interested in. But it is one of the biggest companies on Earth, and its stock just pumped 40% — not something you often see for an outfit which started in the 1970s. Why? Because it just signed a $300 billion multiyear deal with OpenAI to provide compute. In this ep, we dive into the big question on literally eveeryone's lips: what the hell is up with Oracle?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy

40:24

iPhone, But Orange

Down Round ·

2025/09/11

Apple have announced their new iPhones — and they sort of stink of desperation. But one of them is orange, which may or may not appeal to you. Plus, a notable absence of Apple Intelligence chat. The boys are back in the same room after a prolonged interregnum and break it all down for you.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

46:25

Microsoft's Xbox Conundrum

Down Round ·

2025/07/17

Microsoft slashed 9,000 jobs a few weeks ago, with the Xbox division taking a hit including some studio closures. What about that $70 BILLION Activision Blizzard acquisition just a couple of years ago? It sounds like fertile ground for of Raph's largest victory laps to date, after he suggested Microsoft should have ditched Xbox years ago. But first, an update on xAI after last week's ep. Grok 4 has arrived, and its big feature is... AI anime waifus. Uncensored and backed by a million GPUs... what

52:24

Grok: Elon's $28 Billion Slur Machine

Down Round ·

2025/07/10

Elon Musk's AI chatbot, Grok, went "Kanye Mode" — becoming openly Nazi, seemingly out of nowhere. The boys get to the bottom of the root cause, and muse on the big question: what is the point of Grok anyway? Out: Platforms spending millions on content moderation to root our hate speech. In: Spending billions to have your platform literally spew hate speech. Also: an unprecedented Down Round Triple W. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

46:37

Meta's Highway Robbery

Down Round ·

2025/07/03

For a few weeks, we've been talking about Meta's revenge tour in Silicon Valley, throwing massive bonuses at AI talent at rival companies in order to tempt them over to Zuck's domain. Well, it seems to have paid off now — and the company has announced its Superintelligence team, packed with talent they managed to poach. Then, we go into a Bloomberg story which suggests that Apple could be ready to throw in the towel on AI and work with OpenAI and/or Anthropic to power their next-generation

37:11

Reading Out Confidential Emails Live On The Air

Down Round ·

2025/06/26

After the fanfare of the OpenAI/Jony Ive multibillion-dollar device partnership, io, all references were scrubbed from the internet as if it never happened. After rampant speculation, it was revealed that it was over a claim the whole thing was stolen. From some guy named Jason, no less. Seems like OpenAI is a real drama magnet. We discuss the case, including some screenshots of emails that Sam Altman posted. Additionally, Kiwi accounting software powerhouse Xero is making some moves. We talk about

32:43

They Do Ads On Computers Now

Down Round ·

2025/06/19

Canva has made another acquisition: MagicBrief, the advertising command centre founded by a dear friend of the pod. In this ep, we talk about the acquisition, where it fits in Canva's strategy, and wind off into a bigger chat about the ad market. Then, for some reason, we talk about Apple Music and Spotify. Real smorgasbord here folks.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

50:39

Grammarly's Second Wind

Down Round ·

2025/06/05

Remember Grammarly? Of course you do. The briefly ubiquitous piece of software that made sure you were using your possessive apostrophes correctly. Well, guess what? They just received $1 billion in nondilutive investment from General Catalyst to become an all-in-one AI platform? Sounds like bullshit? Well, probably. But it's a business model we'll be seeing more of. We chat through the rise of zombie AI platforms, before digressing into a chat about Perplexity.See omnystudio.com/listener for

49:28

Airbnb for Everything

Down Round ·

2025/05/16

Airbnb is in a mid-life crisis. Founder Brian Chesky is undergoing one of his routine meltdowns where he suddenly decides that the short-stay rental platform should actually be a ticket-clipping mediator of literally all human experience. The platform has been redesigned and relaunched, with both 'services' and 'experiences' living in separate tabs and hoping to tempt you to open the app more than once or twice a year. A tall order indeed. We discuss. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy

44:49

Computer Says I Love You

Down Round ·

2025/05/02

Stacked deck today folks. First we return briefly to Tesla to talk about a Wall Street Journal story which reported the company opened a CEO search to replace Elon Musk. Then we move on to the big tech news story of the week: OpenAI rolling out a ChatGPT update that made it too sycophantic. It was funny, but also shows how these big AI firms are thinking about what their product actually is.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

30:54

The President's Friend Premium

Down Round ·

2025/04/25

Tesla turned in an absolute shocker of an earnings result, which may be related to why Elon Musk announced he would be turning more of his attention to the electric carmaker and less on being Trump's friend. In this ep, we go into the earnings, give a little update on what the EV market is looking like and what Tesla says it wants to do — and a little detour into talking about a Down Under business, GoGet.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

44:30

Studio Ghibli, But Make It Slop Pt. 1

Down Round ·

2025/04/03

We talked about the new OpenAI image generation platform last week briefly, but we recorded on the day it released and therefore missed the massive amounts of discourse it generated. We're sorry. We'll never miss the discourse again. But it was a great opportunity to take stock of the AI art conversation, which has only become more heated and baroque over the past three to six months. Over this episode and the premium, we dive into the current state of computer pictures and the politics around

31:33

Rippling vs Deel

Down Round ·

2025/03/20

HR SaaS is probably the least sexy topic in the world, but fortunately two of the bigger players have made it interesting through bizarre corporate warfare. Rippling has launched a lawsuit against competitor Deel alleging that they placed a spy deep within. The saga contains a honey-pot Slack channel, a mole in the top ranks, and trying to flush a phone down a toilet. It’s good stuff folks. We get into it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

32:55

Apple – Charlie XCX (official lyric video) Pt. 1

Down Round ·

2025/02/06

Apple is worth $3.5 trillion. Trillion with a T. But all is not necessarily well in Tim Cook's kingdom. iPhone sales are slowing and the Apple Intelligence rollout was unimpressive and underwhelming. Now rumours abound that they are abandoning their rescue mission for their VR and AR ambitions. Are Apple floundering? Or just doing thingsThe Apple Way? Who better to discuss than the Down Round boys?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

46:47

January Mania Pt 1: TikTok's Revenge

Down Round ·

2025/01/23

It's not even the end of January and there's already so much crap going on in the world of tech. We're spoiled for choice here. In this two-parter, we're tackling the various stories that have sprung up around the inauguration of Donald Trump — everything from TikTok to meme coins to Project Stargate and Chinese AI. In this first part, we're looking at the latest on the TikTok ban, as well as DeepSeek, the Chinese AI shop that has everyone's attention. Want to get the second part? Join Down

36 results

Down Round

All Episodes

Similar Podcasts

Lead With AI

Tamara Nall

Linux in the Ham Shack

Black Sparrow Media

Data Engineering Podcast

Tobias Macey

Eye On A.I.

Craig S. Smith

Reflections

Livewire Labs