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People vs Algorithms
People vs Algorithms
Troy Young, Brian Morrissey, Alex Schleifer

Uncovering patterns of change in media, culture, and technology, each week media veterans Brian Morrissey, Alex Schleifer and Troy Young break down... more

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Episodes

The Business of Influence with Emily Sundberg

Emily, Brian and Troy delve into the complex world of influencers and celebrities as they navigate public scrutiny and fame... more

28 Mar 2024 · 1 hour, 11 minutes
Algorithmic Sameness with Kyle Chayka

In this episode of 'People vs. Algorithms,' hosts Brian Morrissey, Troy Young, and Alex Schleifer engage in a wide-ranging discussion... more

21 Mar 2024 · 1 hour, 11 minutes
Platform Shifts

As Alex says, the ground is shifting more and faster than it has in some time in the tech world,... more

14 Mar 2024 · 1 hour, 17 minutes
Change at CNN and Google

This week, we discuss how to turn the ship at two very different companies facing different challenges: CNN and Google.... more

07 Mar 2024 · 1 hour, 22 minutes
Survivors

This week, we're joined by Puck fashion correspondent Lauren Sherman, who gives her view on how to build a career... more

29 Feb 2024 · 1 hour, 5 minutes
DDM's Neil Vogel on Navigating Change

Dotdash Meredith CEO Neil Vogel joins the show to discuss how a publisher reliant on search traffic is back in... more

22 Feb 2024 · 1 hour, 13 minutes
The New Internet

The arrival of AI means the paradigm of searching for information and entertainment will give way to instant delivery. This... more

15 Feb 2024 · 1 hour, 1 minute
Blending Realities with Rafat Ali

In this episode Alex, Brian, and Troy, with guest Rafat Ali, discuss the future of technology, focusing on the Apple... more

08 Feb 2024 · 1 hour, 11 minutes
Game Over

With an era of digital media ending in chaos, we look ahead to the challenges media companies face in fixing... more

01 Feb 2024 · 59 minutes
The Gravity of Platforms

Layoffs at The Los Angeles Times, the end of the road for Pitchfork, and an uncertain future for Sports Illustrated... more

25 Jan 2024 · 54 minutes
CES, Ackman’s War, News App Fails

This week we talk CES, the ongoing silliness of the Bill Ackman-Business Insider feud, and why news aggregation apps are... more

18 Jan 2024 · 1 hour, 6 minutes
Hit Pieces, Fairness, Drugs & VR

This week, we dig into the latest front into the so-called hit piece. Last week, Business Insider published a pair of... more

11 Jan 2024 · 57 minutes
New Year, New Optimism

The New Year is maybe the perfect holiday. It’s celebrated by just about every culture and creed. And in a... more

04 Jan 2024 · 1 hour, 12 minutes
The New SERP, the New Syndication

Troy and Brian go over some of the lessons of 2023 and look ahead to 2024, starting with the end... more

21 Dec 2023 · 58 minutes
Minisode: Troy and Alex discuss AI

Troy and Alex kept the conversation going after the recording of last episode. After sharing a "transcendental" experience with Chat... more

15 Dec 2023 · 14 minutes
2024 Storylines

In news, we discuss Google's antitrust loss, the miracle of Cheddar selling for $200 million, 5-Hour Energy Guy cleaning house... more

14 Dec 2023 · 50 minutes
Conspirituality, Celebrity, E-Acc vs Decels, GTA

We live in an age of cults, narratives and fleeting fame. Centralization is giving way to a fragmented culture and... more

07 Dec 2023 · 1 hour, 12 minutes
What’s Next for the Open Web?

The website might be dying. How will this affect media and advertising? We cover this and other hot topics in... more

30 Nov 2023 · 53 minutes
OpenAI and the Culture of Silicon Valley

The OpenAI drama exposed fault lines in the very unique culture of Silicon Valley, highlighting the imperfect methods used to... more

23 Nov 2023 · 44 minutes
The New Interface

AI agents will accelerate the interface shift and change the economics of software, media and beyond. Troy Young's People vs... more

16 Nov 2023 · 55 minutes
Will Brands Still Matter?

The power of brands has eroded, particularly media brands. The path forward for legacy media brands is uncertain but almost... more

09 Nov 2023 · 1 hour, 9 minutes
Gen Z Is Built Different

9-5 Girl on TikTok sparked a debate over the outdated ideas of the 9-5 work day, which was stared by Henry... more

02 Nov 2023 · 51 minutes
The Information Space

While many people pretend that “the media” are still gatekeepers to information, those days are past. The information space is... more

26 Oct 2023 · 1 hour, 1 minute
More With Less

On a crossover episode of The Rebooting Show and People vs Algorithms, Alex and Brian discuss zero-interest rate phenomena and how... more

19 Oct 2023 · 50 minutes
Chris Kimball Says Screw the Algorithm

“Deliver something nobody else is delivering,” advises Milk Street’s Christopher Kimball. The media veteran, who created Cooks Country and America’s... more

12 Oct 2023 · 1 hour,
Product People

You don't have to be an engineer or be a developer to be a product person, although it helps. This week,... more

05 Oct 2023 · 50 minutes
Bustle's Bryan Goldberg on the Post-Scale Era

Bustle Digital Group's Bryan Goldberg joins to discuss why the scale era wasn't as great as it was portrayed. The... more

28 Sep 2023 · 1 hour, 29 minutes
Misaligned Media

Most of the challenges facing media come down to misaligned incentives. Publishers face a bad set of options to serve... more

21 Sep 2023 · 1 hour, 19 minutes
Dismembering Disney

This week, we discuss the rebundling, with a focus on the future of pay TV and why tech companies will... more

14 Sep 2023 · 58 minutes
Heroes, Villains and Assholes

One person's "fire-breathing dragon" is another person's asshole. The zero-interest rate era is in the rearview mirror, and businesses will... more

07 Sep 2023 · 55 minutes
Mass Media Crackup

The foundations of mass media continue to erode, from the declining relevance of presidential debates to the uncertain future of... more

24 Aug 2023 · 45 minutes
Media Is From Mars, Tech Is From Venus

In this Brian-free episode Troy and Alex discuss the tension between media and tech, what changed and why. Plus: weird... more

16 Aug 2023 · 53 minutes
Summer Media

This week Troy, Brian and Alex talk about their summer media habits when on vacation or just trying to unplug.Troy... more

09 Aug 2023 · 43 minutes
More With Less

Maybe publishing stinks as a scaled business, and it won't ever be otherwise. The most promising models I see tend... more

03 Aug 2023 · 36 minutes
Distribution Chokepoints

This week: Media cannot escape being aggregated; Elon Musk's superapp fever dream; Hollywood's dead-cat bounce with Barbieheimer; and publishers look... more

26 Jul 2023 · 1 hour, 5 minutes
Distribution Disruption

Every business deals with disruption and challenges, but the media business is somewhat unique in having such profound upheavals to its... more

19 Jul 2023 · 1 hour, 10 minutes
The Talent Repricing

The zero-interest rate is in the rearview mirror. And now comes the repricing, not just of assets but also talent.... more

12 Jul 2023 · 52 minutes
Twilight of the Open Web

The open web has never faced more threats, and the prevailing winds of the digital economy are working against the... more

07 Jul 2023 · 58 minutes
Dark Patterns

The FTC has declared war on dark patterns, the use of design to manipulate people into taking actions against their... more

30 Jun 2023 · 58 minutes
NYT vs CNN

The old levers of the media business aren't working. This is a time of existential change in many parts of... more

14 Jun 2023 · 43 minutes
Enter the Face Computer

Apple has unveiled its long-anticipated entree into mixed reality, with the announcement of a headset that will be available starting next year.... more

07 Jun 2023 · 58 minutes
The End of Ads and The Last Impression

Ads are like cockroaches. You might not like them, but they always find a way to survive and multiply. But... more

01 Jun 2023 · 54 minutes
Advertising Is Bugs

This week, Troy, Alex and I discuss a variety of topics, ranging from Alex’s beef with advertising, whether gaming will... more

25 May 2023 · 57 minutes
The Deterioration of Webpages

The pageview has long been the atomic unit of the internet. The business of digital publishing has revolved around it.... more

17 May 2023 · 1 hour,
Ambient Media

The battle for engagement has long been a losing battle. The arrival of AI, and the prospect of limitless synthetic... more

10 May 2023 · 51 minutes
The New Interface

The commanding heights of the digital economy are control of the interface. It’s the interface through which the vast expanses... more

03 May 2023 · 47 minutes
Why Buzzfeed News got shut down

Today we talk about why a lack of alignment led to the demise of the once buzzy Buzzfeed News. We... more

26 Apr 2023 · 55 minutes
AI meets tech's friction paradox

Nobody likes friction, at least in the moment. It stands in the way of accomplishing a task. Modern life in... more

19 Apr 2023 · 52 minutes
Ideation time

This week, Troy, Alex and Brian discuss how we come up with ideas and take them through to execution. We... more

13 Apr 2023 · 39 minutes
Fear and Loathing, AI Edition

This week, we discuss how the conversation about AI has broken into camps of maximalists, doomers and fatalists. AI looks... more

05 Apr 2023 · 48 minutes
The death of ad formats

It's been 20 years, and despite endless attempts to bend the internet to its will, advertising remains a fraught part... more

29 Mar 2023 · 1 hour, 2 minutes
Format, shmormat

Brian, Troy, and Alex tackle the fascinating topic of formats and explore why they can make or break media companies.... more

22 Mar 2023 · 49 minutes
Bank failure or culture war?

Brian, Troy, and Alex jump on a call to talk about that SVB thing and the discourse around it. Some... more

14 Mar 2023 · 1 hour,
Substack is probably important

This week Brian, Troy and Alex discuss Substack, why it's turning into a platform, and why e-mail may or may... more

08 Mar 2023 · 47 minutes
Alex wants to burn the ad industry down

Today Brian, Troy and Alex ask themselves "what is premium"? They also discuss bundling in its many different forms. How... more

01 Mar 2023 · 45 minutes
Publishing is a perpetual hackathon

Software has eaten the world, and for publishers that means a continuous battle to fend off second-order impacts of decisions... more

22 Feb 2023 · 43 minutes
The new media interface

Troy, Alex and Brian discuss what's next for interfaces and how we will be getting our media in the future.Show... more

16 Feb 2023 · 42 minutes
Uniqueness, differentiation and building the next media brand

Troy, Alex and Brian discuss differentiation or uniqueness and what it means as the algorithmic age moves into new territory.Show... more

08 Feb 2023 · 46 minutes
The state of optimism, was Steve Jobs a psychopath and the coming bumper sticker renaissance.

In this episode we discuss the virtues and misuses of optimism. We dig into how optimism gets applied to the... more

03 Feb 2023 · 57 minutes
How we make decisions

This week we’re talking about decisions: how to make them, when they go wrong, and the tough decisions that are... more

26 Jan 2023 · 50 minutes
People vs Algorithms
Uniqueness, differentiation and building the next media brand
People vs Algorithms
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Listen now on

Apple Podcasts
Spotify
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Overcast
Podcast Addict
Pocket Casts
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Podcast Republic
Castro
RadioPublic
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Description

Troy, Alex and Brian discuss differentiation or uniqueness and what it means as the algorithmic age moves into new territory.Show notes:Troy Young's... more