x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

The Making of Musk: Understood

Understood takes you deep inside the seismic shifts reshaping our world right now. From online porn and crypto chaos to the rise of tech oligarchs, deepfake AI, and the broken promises of the internet — we explore the stories that define our digital age with hosts and characters embedded in the heart of the action.Season 1 - The Naked Emperor: the rise and fall of bitcoin king Sam Bankman-Fried.Season 2 - The Pornhub Empire: the story of how a Montreal-founded company came to dominate the adult

technology

All Episodes

00:44:36

E4: The Great Trek

The Making of Musk: Understood ·

2025/10/28

Finally, we launch into Musk’s ultimate quest — his desire to colonize Mars — and how he went from wanting to save earth to wanting to escape it. We hear the origin story of SpaceX, including why one astrophysicist calls Musk’s Earth-exiting plan “delusional.” Is the red planet the ultimate “bubble” of total control, or does it represent a level of hubris that’s out-of-this-world?Guests in this episode include:Robert Zubrin, aerospace engineer and Mars-exploration advocateTom Moline, former SpaceX

en-ca

00:49:31

E3: The Legion

The Making of Musk: Understood ·

2025/10/21

What does Musk, father of 14, expect from his “legion” of children? We unravel his quest for genetic optimization, including alleged embryo screening, and his pronatalist views. And we hear from his estranged daughter, Vivian.Guests in this episode include:Julia Black, journalist who broke the story about Musk’s twins with Shivon Zilis.Vivian Wilson, Elon Musk's estranged daughter (archival/podcast clip)Dvija Mehta, ethicist working on emerging technologies.Topics in this episode include:Elon Musk's

en-ca

00:48:03

E2: Technocracy, Inc.

The Making of Musk: Understood ·

2025/10/14

Could Musk’s authoritarian streak trace back to his Canadian grandfather? Before Joshua Haldeman brought his family to South Africa, he made waves as part of the radical 1930s Technocracy movement. And while the two men’s lives only overlapped for three years, we find echoes of Elon’s worldview in Haldeman’s pro-tech, anti-democratic ideology.Guests in this episode include:Geoff Leo, senior investigative journalist for CBCDerek Proudian, early investor in Zip2.comWill Shoki, South African journalist

en-ca

00:38:30

E1: Escape from Pretoria

The Making of Musk: Understood ·

2025/10/07

Where did Elon Musk’s epic ambitions begin? In search of clues we return to his sheltered youth in apartheid South Africa, a world engineered for white supremacy. Along the way, we connect the dots between a bizarre White House ambush of South African president Cyril Ramaphosa to teenage Elon’s ego-powered quests in video games. Finally, was his “draft dodge” from military service a moral act or an opportunist’s exit?Guests in this episode include:Rudolph Pienaar, childhood friend of Elon MuskWill

en-ca

00:02:47

Introducing Understood: The Making of Elon Musk

The Making of Musk: Understood ·

2025/09/26

What explains Elon Musk? Could his most outlandish ambitions and most toxic qualities trace back to his youth in Apartheid South Africa? Understood: The Making of Musk explores his seemingly insatiable drive for dominance, which connects everything from his birthrate obsession (and fourteen children) to his fixation with colonizing Mars.This four-part series, hosted by Jacob Silverman, reveals a little known side of the polarizing billionaire. Silverman tells the vital beginnings of this story —

en-ca

00:22:51

Introducing: Click Here | Citizen Lab is still...

The Making of Musk: Understood ·

2025/07/15

Today we’re sharing an episode from the Click Here podcast from Recorded Future News and PRX.The early Internet was all about hope and utopian possibilities. But the founder of the Citizen Lab, Ron Deibert, always had an unsettled feeling about the web and its dark underbelly. So he created a team of digital sleuths to investigate.More episodes of Click here are available at: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/click-here/id1225077306

en-ca

00:41:48

Bonus: Cory Doctorow chats about his new novel on...

The Making of Musk: Understood ·

2025/06/09

In this special bonus conversation, Cory Doctorow sits down with Bookends host Mattea Roach to discuss his latest novel, Picks & Shovels. The book is the third in his series about forensic accountant Martin Hench, who investigates financial crime in Silicon Valley.When the book ends, the conversation begins. Mattea Roach speaks with writers who have something to say about their work, the world and our place in it. You’ll always walk away with big questions to ponder and new books to read.You can

en-ca

00:41:20

Kick 'Em in the Dongle

The Making of Musk: Understood ·

2025/05/26

It's 2025. President Trump is back, and the richest men in tech are on stage with him. What started as a dysfunctional internet run by tech giants, and enabled by failed legislation, has morphed into something even more dangerous: what economist Yanis Varoufakis calls technofeudalism. Host Cory Doctorow traces how U.S. trade pressure dragged Canada into America's broken internet model, how shortsighted attempts to make big platforms behave came back to haunt us during the worst wildfire season in

en-ca

00:36:33

In God We Antitrust

The Making of Musk: Understood ·

2025/05/19

American antitrust laws were designed to stop companies from wielding the power of kings. But in the 1970s, a legal scholar named Robert Bork convinced Washington to ignore those laws. Host Cory Doctorow traces how Bork's influence gave digital giants like Amazon a decades-long free pass to dominate markets, crush competitors, exploit their own business clients, and treat users like hostages — and how, after 40 years of inaction, former FTC chair Lina Khan took on the fight to rein in monopoly

en-ca

00:28:34

Ctrl, Ctrl, Ctrl

The Making of Musk: Understood ·

2025/05/12

In 1998, the United States Congress tried to tame the wild internet with a new law: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. But buried in its fine print was a provision that would end up giving tech giants ultimate legal protection and control, and stop innovators from fixing what's broken. Host Cory Doctorow traces how a law written for a different era led to the arrest of a researcher, became the playbook for Meta's enshittification, and lets platforms degrade your online life today — protecting

en-ca

00:36:47

Don't Be Evil

The Making of Musk: Understood ·

2025/05/05

Google Search was the gold standard — a product born in a dorm room during the internet’s early, idealistic era. But when internal emails surfaced they revealed a deeper conflict inside the company: was Google making Search worse, on purpose, to boost ad revenue? Google says its changes are all about benefiting users. Critics say it’s all part of a bigger pattern — one that host Cory Doctorow calls enshittification: the slow, deliberate decay of platforms in the name of profit.Guests in this episode

en-ca

00:03:49

Introducing Understood: Who Broke the Internet?

The Making of Musk: Understood ·

2025/04/28

It's not you — the internet really does suck. Novelist, blogger and noted internet commentator Cory Doctorow explains what happened to the internet and why you're tormented by ads, bots, algorithms, AI slop and so many pop-ups.Spoiler alert: it wasn't an accident.In a four-part series, Doctorow gets into the decisions made by powerful people that got us here, and most importantly, how we fix it. New episodes released weekly starting on Monday, May 5, 2025.

en-ca

00:32:42

The Céline-aissance

The Making of Musk: Understood ·

2024/11/05

In the aftermath of René Angélil’s death, a Céline-aissance. But then, illness strikes. In the final episode of Céline: Understood, a look at her recent years, and why her fame endures.

en-ca

00:30:46

The Globalization of Céline

The Making of Musk: Understood ·

2024/10/29

Céline Dion becomes inescapable in the mid-nineties with her hit song from the Titanic soundtrack, My Heart Will Go On. She achieves a unique level of global fame, earning fans from Jamaica to Iraq. But her ubiquity will also inspire a backlash in North America.

en-ca

00:30:14

The U.S. Gamble

The Making of Musk: Understood ·

2024/10/22

With her manager René Angélil by her side, Céline Dion is starting to crossover into the US. But there’s a secret René and Céline have been keeping: one René feared could stop Céline’s blooming career in its tracks.

en-ca

00:37:50

Conquering Québec

The Making of Musk: Understood ·

2024/10/15

Céline Dion slept in a drawer as a baby born into a poor francophone Catholic family in Québec. At 12, she gets discovered in an office in Montreal, and she becomes a rising star in the insular constellation of Québec celebrity. But just as Céline is trying to break into English Canada, political tensions are running high in Québec. And some accuse her of selling out.

en-ca

00:02:56

Introducing Céline: Understood

The Making of Musk: Understood ·

2024/10/08

Céline Dion is having a moment. It’s not her first. And millions of fans are hoping it won’t be her last. While Céline’s international stardom seems obvious now, it was all so unlikely. This four-part series hosted by Céline expert Thomas Leblanc explores the surprising cultural, political and business alchemy that created one of the most enduring superstars the planet has ever seen. Four episodes releasing weekly starting on Tuesday, October 15, 2024.

en-ca

00:28:14

Bonus: Click Here from Recorded Future News

The Making of Musk: Understood ·

2024/07/18

A former American IRS investigator responsible for some of the earliest dark market takedowns has been in Nigerian custody since February. Neither Nigerian nor the US authorities seem to be distinguishing Tigran Gambaryan from Binance, the company where he works. The Click Here podcast from Recorded Future News is a bi-weekly tech news podcast and this episode features Jacob Silverman, the host of The Naked Emperor: Understood to help dive into this story. More episodes of Click Here are available

en-ca

00:18:10

BONUS: Modi’s weak win

The Making of Musk: Understood ·

2024/06/05

Prime Minister Narendra Modi may have narrowly won a third term, but without a majority government, his grip on power appears weaker than ever. On this bonus episode of Modi’s India: Understood, host Salimah Shivji and producer Joyita Sengupta talk about the surprising results of the Indian election.

en-ca

00:42:41

Modi's India Episode 4: The Storyteller

The Making of Musk: Understood ·

2024/05/27

India’s democracy has been called a miracle. Now, some fear it’s at risk.From Gandhi’s legacy to Bollywood films, how is Modi rewriting the story of India?

en-ca

37 results

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