In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by Carl Brown, a veteran software developer and host of The Internet of Bugs, to talk about the realities of software development, what coding LLMs can actually do, and how the media gets it wrong about software engineering at large. Original Air Date: 6.4.25 https://www.youtube.com/@InternetOfBugs New GitHub Copilot Research Finds 'Downward Pressure on Code Quality' - https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2024/01/25/copilot-research.aspx Report: AI codin...
Nov 26, 2025•58 min
In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by Gerrit De Vynck of The Washington Post to discuss what an analysis of 47,000 ChatGPT conversations can tell us about how people use the service - and how willing it is to fuel basically any conversation. We analyzed 47,000 ChatGPT conversations. Here’s what people really use it for - https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/11/12/how-people-use-chatgpt-data/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/gerrit-de-vynck/ https://x.com/GerritD https://bsky.app...
Nov 20, 2025•42 min
In a Better Offline exclusive, Ed Zitron reveals how much OpenAI spent on inference in 2024 and 2025, as well as how much it paid Microsoft as part of its 20% revenue share. Inference costs are much higher - and implied revenues much lower - than previously reported. (Free) Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/oai_docs/ The Information - OpenAI’s First Half Results: $4.3 Billion in Sales, $2.5 Billion Cash Burn - https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openais-first-half-results-4-3-billion-s...
Nov 12, 2025•7 min
This week’s Better Offline is a recording of a panel held by Clarion West in Seattle earlier this year with Cory Doctorow and Ed Zitron, discussing enshittification, The Rot Economy, and the destruction of modern tech platforms, moderated by Whitney Beltrán. Cory Doctorow: https://craphound.com/ Whitney Beltrán: https://brightwhitney.com/ Get involved with Clarion West: https://www.clarionwest.org/get-involved/give/ Clarion West is a nonprofit literary organization that runs an acclaimed six-wee...
Nov 12, 2025•58 min
In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron talks about OpenAI hinting they’d want a federal backstop for data center loans, NVIDIA’s weird, desperate post about China, and his deep suspicion about OpenAI’s leaked numbers. Want to support me? Get $10 off a year’s subscription to my premium newsletter: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/w08jbm4jwg It would mean a lot! WSJ: OpenAI Made a $12 Billion Loss Last Quarter, Microsoft Results Indicate http...
Nov 07, 2025•7 min
Welcome to Radio Better Offline, a tech talk radio show recorded out of iHeartRadio's studio in New York City. Ed is joined in-studio by founder and writer Charlie Meyer to talk about the BS of vibe coding, why the valley went so crazy about scaling laws, and the realities of AI coding. https://blog.charliemeyer.co/ https://csmeyer.substack.com/ Code Doesn’t Happen To You - https://csmeyer.substack.com/p/code-doesnt-happen-to-you The Trillion Dollar Chart (scaling laws piece) - https://blog.char...
Nov 05, 2025•53 min
In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron takes a moment to discuss the current state of the bubble, and the way we’re all feeling at this time in history. Want to support me? Get $10 off a year’s subscription to my premium newsletter: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/w08jbm4jwg it would mean a lot! The Register: Microsoft seemingly just revealed that OpenAI lost $11.5B last quarter https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/29/microsoft_earnings_q1_...
Oct 31, 2025•11 min
Welcome to Radio Better Offline, a tech talk radio show recorded out of iHeartRadio's studio in New York City. Ed is joined in-studio by Paris Martineau of Consumer Reports and freelance writer Ashwin Rodrigues to talk about the amount of lead in protein shakes, why people turn to the internet for medical advice, and how supplements are the wild west of e-commerce. Paris Martineau https://www.consumerreports.org/about-us/our-people/our-experts/paris-martineau/ https://bsky.app/profile/paris.nyc ...
Oct 29, 2025•50 min
In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron walks you through why nobody should be afraid of generative video, and how it’s impossible, impractical and expensive to make movies with Sora. https://www.npr.org/2025/10/20/nx-s1-5567119/sora-2-openai-hollywood https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/video-generation https://mediashower.com/blog/first-ai-viral-ad/ https://x.com/PJaccetturo/status/1932893269228466270 Want to support me? Get $10 off a year’s subscription to my premium newsletter...
Oct 24, 2025•13 min
In a Better Offline exclusive, Ed Zitron reveals how much Anthropic spent on Amazon Web Services in 2024 and 2025, and how the costs of running their services are increasing linearly with their revenue, suggesting there may be no path to profitability for LLMs. (Free) Newsletter: www.wheresyoured.at/costs/ Want to support me? Get $10 off a year’s subscription to my premium newsletter: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/w08jbm4jwg YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER O...
Oct 20, 2025•21 min
In this week’s Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron walks you through data from Deutsche Bank that shows ChatGPT’s growth is flatlining in Europe, and how advertising isn’t going to save OpenAI. OpenAI’s ‘flatlining’ subs in Europe: The AI boom’s poster child may be struggling to recruit new subscribers, Deutsche Bank warns https://finance.yahoo.com/news/openai-flatlining-subs-europe-ai-145343677.html Get $10 off a year’s subscription to my premium newsletter: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghost...
Oct 17, 2025•8 min
In this week’s episode of Better Offline, Ed flies out to North Carolina for a deep interview with Steve Burke of Gamersnexus about the state of PC hardware, AI, Linux gaming, their extremely scientific hardware testing, and building a channel watched by 2.5 million people. https://www.youtube.com/gamersnexus Get $10 off a year’s subscription to my premium newsletter: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/w08jbm4jwg YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go ...
Oct 15, 2025•1 hr 39 min
In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by writer Brian Merchant to talk about US AI regulation, and how governments never seem to make the effort to understand technology. https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/ https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/were-about-to-find-out-if-silicon Get $10 off a year’s subscription to my premium newsletter: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/w08jbm4jwg YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/b...
Oct 10, 2025•29 min
Welcome to Radio Better Offline, a tech talk radio show recorded out of iHeartRadio's studio in New York City. Ed Zitron is joined in studio by The Verge’s Victoria Song and Defector’s David Roth to talk about Sora 2, Meta’s AR glasses, the “friend” pendant, and why none of these products can ever truly deliver meaningful friendship. Victoria Song: https://www.theverge.com/authors/victoria-song https://bsky.app/profile/vicmsong.bsky.social David Roth, Defector: https://bsky.app/profile/davidjrot...
Oct 08, 2025•51 min
In part four of this week’s four-part case against generative AI, Ed Zitron walks you through how there’s literally not enough money in the world to pay for OpenAI’s estimated $1 trillion four-year burn, and why the media tell the truth about AI to save retail investors. Latest Premium Newsletter: OpenAI Needs A Trillion Dollars In The Next Four Years: https://www.wheresyoured.at/openai-onetrillion/ YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and us...
Oct 03, 2025•29 min
In part three of this week’s four-part case against generative AI, Ed Zitron walks you through how “AI replacing software engineers” is a myth spread by the media and investors - and how Microsoft only has 8 to 12 million active paying customers for Microsoft 365’s AI Copilot out of 440 million users. Latest Premium Newsletter: OpenAI Needs A Trillion Dollars In The Next Four Years: https://www.wheresyoured.at/openai-onetrillion/ YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.c...
Oct 02, 2025•27 min
In part two of this week’s four-part case against generative AI, Ed Zitron walks you through how NVIDIA funds and pumps money into unprofitable, debt-ridden “neoclouds” all to create vehicles to buy more GPUs - all to cover up the lack of demand for generative AI compute. Latest Premium Newsletter: OpenAI Needs A Trillion Dollars In The Next Four Years: https://www.wheresyoured.at/openai-onetrillion/ YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and u...
Oct 01, 2025•29 min
In part one of this week’s four-part case against generative AI, Ed Zitron walks you through how generative AI is sold through a complete misunderstanding of the concept of labor - and myth-building by companies like NVIDIA and OpenAI. Latest Premium Newsletter: OpenAI Needs A Trillion Dollars In The Next Four Years: https://www.wheresyoured.at/openai-onetrillion/ YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline use free99 for free shipping on orders of ...
Sep 30, 2025•25 min
In this week’s Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron walks you through NVIDIA and OpenAI’s nonsense deal, and how OpenAI now needs $600 billion in the next four years to survive. OpenAI and NVIDIA Announce Strategic Partnership to Deploy 10 Gigawatts of NVIDIA Systems https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/openai-and-nvidia-announce-strategic-partnership-to-deploy-10gw-of-nvidia-systems New York Times - OpenAI to Join Tech Giants in Building 5 New Data Centers in U.S. https://archive.is/vUf0t The Info...
Sep 26, 2025•10 min
Welcome to Radio Better Offline, a tech talk radio show recorded out of iHeartRadio's studio in New York city. Ed Zitron is joined in studio by astrophysicist Adam Becker to talk about his new book More Everything Forever, the BS AGI story, why Eliezer Yudkowsky should never be taken seriously, and why billionaires love LLMs. https://bsky.app/profile/adambecker.bsky.social https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/adam-becker/more-everything-forever/9781541619593/ YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE M...
Sep 24, 2025•1 hr 7 min
In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by software engineer Colt Voege to talk about how AI isn’t 10xing the productivity of software engineering, the truth about coding LLMs, and what we can actually expect AI to do for software in the future. YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more. BUY A LIMITED EDITION BETTER OFFLINE CHALLENGE COIN! https://cottonbureau.com/p/XSH74N/challenge-coin/...
Sep 19, 2025•38 min
Welcome to Radio Better Offline, a tech talk radio show recorded out of iHeartRadio's studio in New York City. Ed Zitron is joined in studio by Allison Morrow of CNN, Ed Ongweso Jr. of the Tech Bubble newsletter to talk about the AI vibe shift, OpenAI’s burn rate, what will finally burst the bubble, and something called “Critterz.” Allison Morrow https://www.cnn.com/profiles/allison-morrow https://bsky.app/profile/amorrow.bsky.social Ed Ongweso Jr. https://thetechbubble.substack.com/ https://bsk...
Sep 17, 2025•56 min
In the final part of this week's three-part Better Offline Guide To Arguing With AI Boosters, Ed Zitron walks you through why generative AI is nothing like Amazon Web Services, how the media misled the public about ChatGPT, and why ChatGPT’s popularity does not mean it’s a mass-market product. Latest Premium Newsletter: Why Everybody Is Losing Money On Generative AI: https://www.wheresyoured.at/why-everybody-is-losing-money-on-ai/ YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau....
Sep 12, 2025•37 min
In part two of this week's three-part Better Offline Guide To Arguing With AI Boosters, Ed Zitron walks you through why the AI bubble is nothing like the dot-com bubble, how the cost of inference is actually going up, and why OpenAI’s massive burnrate is nothing like Uber’s. Latest Premium Newsletter: Why Everybody Is Losing Money On Generative AI: https://www.wheresyoured.at/why-everybody-is-losing-money-on-ai/ YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-o...
Sep 11, 2025•33 min
In part one of this week's three-part Better Offline Guide To Arguing With AI Boosters, Ed Zitron walks you through why AI is nothing like the early days of the internet, why it isn’t the early days of the AI industry, and why every booster argues in the future tense. Latest Premium Newsletter: Why Everybody Is Losing Money On Generative AI: https://www.wheresyoured.at/why-everybody-is-losing-money-on-ai/ YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline ...
Sep 10, 2025•35 min
In this week’s Better Offline monologue, Ed walks you through how tech and business skepticism has begun to go mainstream, and how it can be the force to push back against the Rot Economy. Ed On CNN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGVKZQQSJkg&t=2s Ed On BBC (July): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AxrpXF7MWw&t=1s Ed On BBC (August): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CI9cjWDpmSY Ed On Bloomberg’s Everybody’s Business Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2F4heaeJIE Ed On Newcomer Podca...
Sep 05, 2025•13 min
In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by Steve Burke of GamersNexus to talk about the black market for AI GPUs in China - and how Bloomberg suspiciously forced YouTube to take his video down. Premium Newsletter: AI Bubble 2027 - https://www.wheresyoured.at/ai-bubble-2027 GamersNexus: Our Channel Could Be Deleted (GamersNexus) https://youtu.be/tUnRWh4xOCY?si=AD2hyE6z5-ZiyInW Mirror of NVIDIA AI GPU Black Market Story - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyWelvEP_CQ https://www.youtube.com/gamersnexus...
Sep 03, 2025•37 min
In this week’s Better Offline monologue, Ed considers what would happen if he’s right about the AI bubble bursting - and the consequences of three years of myth-peddling journalism and markets addicted to growth at all costs. FT: Microsoft talks set to push OpenAI’s restructure into next year https://www.ft.com/content/b81d5fb6-26e9-417a-a0cc-6b6689b70c98 Sherwood: Nvidia, the asset manager, had a massive Q2 thanks to CoreWeave’s rally https://sherwood.news/markets/nvidia-the-asset-manager-had-a...
Aug 29, 2025•21 min
Welcome to Radio Better Offline, a tech talk radio show recorded out of one of iHeartRadio's satellite studios in New York city. Ed is joined by Kyle Barr of Gizmodo, freelance writer Alex Cranz and content creator Michael Fisher (AKA Mr. Mobile) to talk about the weird and fun gadgets that are still getting made, both in the US and abroad. Latest newsletter: How To Argue With An AI Booster - https://www.wheresyoured.at/how-to-argue-with-an-ai-booster/ Latest premium newsletter: How Does GPT-5 W...
Aug 27, 2025•1 hr 9 min
In a bonus third episode, Ed Zitron reports exclusively on how OpenAI’s new "router-based" ChatGPT-5 makes it impossible for the company to cache the static prompt for any model or tool it uses every single prompt, doubling token burn for mediocre gains. Better Offline listener deal: Get $15 Off Where's Your Ed At Premium! Deal goes until the end of August. https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/better-offline-discount YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! G...
Aug 22, 2025•29 min
