Down Round

Jan 30 2025 223 ep. 26 mins 219
Down Round Podcast artwork

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

  Technology  Business
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DeepSeek Freakout Pt. 1

Jan 30 2025 34 mins  
It's fair to say things have been a little crazy this week. Thanks to the drop of Chinese AI lab DeepSeek's beautiful, powerful AI reasoning model, tech stocks took an absolute pounding — producing, in no small part because of Nvidia, the largest individual loss of share market value in American history. The freakout wasn't just in markets. AI developers in the US were also g

January Mania Pt 1: TikTok's Revenge

Jan 23 2025 46 mins  
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 TikTo

One Big Gold Nugget, Please (PREVIEW)

Jan 16 2025 4 mins  
The number one social media app in the Apple App Store is currently Xiaohongshu, AKA The Little Red Book, the Chinese social shopping app reminiscent of TikTok but with more shopping.  We take a squiz at that, before assessing the latest announcements from Nvidia and what it all means.  Strap in, the boys are back for 2025.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informati

Based Mark Zuckerberg (ft. Mike Isaac)

Jan 14 2025 61 mins  
Over the last couple of weeks, Mark Zuckerberg and Meta have signalled a shift in the way the company is run — eliminating factcheckers, rolling back internal DEI policies and bringing politics content back to company platforms. On the one hand, you can read it as an obvious sop to the incoming Trump administration. But there's definitely a cultural change in the air when it

Xmas Spectacular Pt 5: The Accountability Episode

Jan 07 2025 33 mins  
On Down Round, we make many predictions. Almost all of them are correct. For this episode, we have used the power of AI to forensically audit a representative sample of episodes over the last year, with the goal of answering the question: just how right were we?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Xmas Spectacular Pt 3: Shark Tank (ft. Becky Lucas & Joyride)

Jan 01 2025 29 mins  
Just like we did last year, we're continuing the silly season with another entry of DOWN ROUND SHARK TANK. On social media and in our Discord, you submitted your startup pitches, and now we're going to decide if we will invest. Joining us on the panel are friends of the pod Becky Lucas and Joyride, who will assist us in the mammoth task of evaluating your very serious startup ideas

Xmas Spectacular Pt 2: Q&A Continued (PREVIEW)

Dec 26 2024 5 mins  
This is part two of our annual Xmas spectacular, and we continue to answer your questions. To hear the rest, sign up to premium: downround.netSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Xmas Spectacular Pt 1: Q&A

Dec 26 2024 46 mins  
This is part one of our annual Xmas spectacular, and we are answering your burning questions. Is AI a bust? Why is a company called AppLovin worth more than 100 billion dollars? Has Raph watched any movies in 2024? An insane prank. Subscribe for part 2, which is out now: downround.netSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Apple Intelligence: The OFFICIAL Down Round Review

Dec 17 2024 50 mins  
Apple has been hyping up its late-ish foray into the world of LLMs and artificial intelligence since June. But now a decent range of Apple Intelligence features are available — as long as you have the right device —like writing tools, image generation, notification summaries and so on. In this ep we talk about it, Apple's strategy, and why it all feels a bit weak.See om

Unpacking The Social Media Ban (ft. Cam Wilson)

Dec 10 2024 50 mins  
Australia passed legislation banning social media for kids under 16, as we've discussed in previous eps. But in today's episode, we're getting into the nitty gritty. We're joined by Crikey reporter Cam Wilson to tease out some of the specifics of the legislation and how it might be enforced. We also force him to debate the greatest question of our time: should we save Australian ch