Best Allthingsd Podcasts (2025)

1
Why did Apple ice out the most famous Apple blogger? 1:08:48

Play Pause

3d ago1:08:48

1:08:48

If you want smart, nuanced insight into Apple’s products and would-be products, you turn to John Gruber, who’s been blogging about this stuff for more than two decades at his Daring Fireball site. So in March, when Gruber announced that Something is Rotten in the State of Cupertino — focusing on Apple’s botched plans to imbue its ailing Siri servic…

1
On the hunt for media optimism, with Semafor’s Ben Smith and The Rebooting’s Brian Morrissey 30:22

9d ago30:22

30:22

Here’s one where we try to do two things at once: Have a convo about green shoots in media with two smart guys who know media really well — Semafor’s Ben Smith and The Rebooting’s Brian Morrissey. Try to find new audiences for our respective podcasts, by cutting up that conversation into 3 parts, and distributing those parts to our respective feeds…

1
Scott Frank on Netflix, the future of Hollywood, and Dept. Q 47:42

10d ago47:42

47:42

Scott Frank used to write great movies, like “Out of Sight.” Now he’s a Netflix guy, and a super successful one: he made “Godless,” a horses-and-everything Western for the streamer, then had a pandemic-era phenomenon with “The Queen’s Gambit.” Now he’s back with “Dept. Q”, his take on the British mystery genre. You can find that one on Netflix’s to…

1
Bluesky Wasn’t Supposed to be a Twitter Rival. Now It Is. 38:01

17d ago38:01

38:01

I admit it: I most definitely rolled my eyes in 2019, when Twitter announced vague plans to build an "open and decentralized standard for social media". At the time I didn't really understand what then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was trying to do — or why the head of a social media company with plenty of problems was messing around with plans to create…

1
How to Reinvent a Magazine, with Wired’s Katie Drummond 51:58

24d ago51:58

51:58

Today we’re talking about how you take a media property that’s been around for a long time, and find a way to bring in new eyeballs — and new revenue. That property is Wired — the place that told you about the internet before the internet even existed — and the person who’s reviving it is Katie Drummond, who has been running the property for a coup…

1
Meta's Adam Mosseri explains how Instagram really works - and how he wants to build Threads 1:02:46

1M ago1:02:46

1:02:46

Adam Mosseri's official title is head of Instagram, Meta's massive photo and video app. He also runs Threads, the Twitter clone the company launched two years ago. Unofficially, he's become one of Meta's chief explainers, frequently jumping on social media to defend and proselytize on behalf of his employer. So when I got a chance to interview Moss…

1
How Apple trapped itself in China 1:11:32

1M ago1:11:32

1:11:32

The iPhone you’re reading this on was made in China. For a long time, that fact was a huge part of Apple’s success story: Working hand-in-hand, Apple and China built a sophisticated supply chain that let Apple manufacture very complicated technology at an enormous scale. Now that relationship seems like Apple’s achilles heel, says Patrick McGee. Mc…

1
Ian Rogers tells me I need a crypto wallet 1:08:41

1M ago1:08:41

1:08:41

I wanted to talk to Ian Rogers about his fascinating career. He wanted to talk to me about Ledger, the crypto wallet company he’s working at now. So we did both things. Background: Rogers was an important figure in the digital music business, back when the music business was being fundamentally reshaped by digital. He helped the Beastie Boys get on…

1
How to fight Apple and (maybe) win, with Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney 37:43

2M ago37:43

37:43

Today's podcast is an in-depth discussion of Apple's App Store rules and how they... wait! Don't leave! I could try to tell you why Apple's App Store rules are important to both Apple and the digital economy (sadly, I just realized I've been covering them for nearly 15 years, so they better be important). But a better messenger for that task is Tim…

1
Tariffs, Trump, TikTok: What’s going to happen to ads in 2025? 58:50

2M ago58:50

58:50

There are all kinds of ways to measure the health of an economy. The one I rely on is ad spending. One reason for that is simple: I work in ad-supported businesses, so I want to know about things are going to affect me personally. A less self-interested reason: The health of the ad business is tied directly to the way companies feel about their ove…

1
Roblox CEO David Baszucki knows what your kids are doing. 48:08

2M ago48:08

48:08

Every day some 85 million people - most of them kids - show up to play, chat and spend money on Roblox. That’s a massive audience just about any tech or media company would like to have. But David Baszucki wants more: He thinks his platform can eventually command 10% of the worldwide gaming market. I spent time talking to Baszucki about those ambit…

1
How to make money in Washington, with Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman 44:19

2M ago44:19

44:19

Some people don’t want to pay for media. But lots of people are paying Jake Sherman and his team at Punchbowl News: The 4-year-old startup is thriving by providing super-insidery news and data about what’s happening in Congress. I chatted with Sherman because I wanted to get an update on his business (he says he’s not going to sell it anytime soon,…

1
NYT publisher AG Sulzberger on Trump, OpenAi and the economy 1:09:07

2M ago1:09:07

1:09:07

The New York Times faces the same challenges every other news organization faces in 2025. But it’s also in way better shape to take those challenges on: Thanks to a business model built on 11 million subscribers, it’s not nearly so worried about things like the fluctuations of the ad business, or changes in Google’s algorithm. That comparative stre…

1
Trump vs The Media, Round 2, with Sara Fischer 50:29

3M ago50:29

50:29

The Trump 2.0 era is less than three months old. But it’s already creating havoc for journalists and the companies they work for. In Washington, Trump and his team are demoting traditional media - or kicking them out of the White House entirely. In corporate boardrooms, he is forcing media owners to settle lawsuits they would normally fight, and to…

1
How long can sports keep TV alive? 47:58

3M ago47:58

47:58

Call it symbiosis. Call it co-dependency. However you want to characterize it, there’s zero debate that Big TV and Big Sports are deeply intertwined. So if the TV business is shrinking, what happens to sports? That’s the main question I had for John Ourand, the longtime sports business reporter who’s now at Puck. But I had lots of related ones, lik…

1
Inside PJ Vogt’s low budget, super successful podcast 1:05:40

3M ago1:05:40

1:05:40

Anyone who makes things thinks they could do it better if they had more. More money, time, headcount, infrastructure. Some of us find there can be upsides to doing it with less, too. That's not exactly PJ Vogt's story but I think it's directionally accurate: Vogt cohosted a huge hit podcast - Reply All - and when he decided to try again - with Sear…

1
Twitch CEO Dan Clancy wants to hang on to the live-streaming crown 1:01:49

3M ago1:01:49

1:01:49

Back when I first started covering the internet, the idea of broadcasting yourself for hours on end seemed like a pipe dream for weirdos. Now it's how some people make a living. Twitch more or less created live-streaming in the U.S., which is why Amazon bought it for about $1 billion back in 2014. But now there are plenty of places to watch, and cr…

1
Matt Belloni: what the Oscars tell us about Hollywood 43:48

4M ago43:48

43:48

We had to stop recording this one for a minute, because Matt Belloni got a text. More on that below. Big picture: Matt is a longtime Hollywood reporter - and lawyer before that - who now has the industry's ear via his writing at Puck and his The Town podcast. I asked him to talk about what lies ahead for the Oscars, the out-of-step TV production th…

1
Free speech is under attack 53:21

4M ago53:21

53:21

The most useful class I ever took in college was a media law class, where I learned two things: 1) Journalists in the U.S. (along every other American citizen) have enormous freedom to say and write what they want, without fear of a defamation suit and 2) this freedom exists largely because of New York Times v Sullivan, a seminal Supreme Court case…

1
Matthew Ball: Why the games business is broken 38:03

4M ago38:03

38:03

Everyone knows that video games are giant, fast-growing business that's going to swamp traditional media. Except that's not true: The games business is now in a prolonged and confusing funk. Investor and analyst Matthew Ball has been diving deep into the industry, so I asked him to take a stab at explaining what's going on. Bonus question: When doe…

1
BuzzFeed wants to build a… social network? 34:52

4M ago34:52

34:52

A decade ago BuzzFeed was the bleeding edge of digital media, and Serious People thought it was going to be a threat to the likes of the New York Times. Many rounds of layoffs and asset sales later, BuzzFeed is a much more modest operation. But say this for Jonah Peretti: He continues to pitch Very Big Ideas for his company. Now the BuzzFeed CEO th…

1
Why Michael Lewis is worried about the sports betting boom 1:01:34

5M ago1:01:34

1:01:34

It’s hard to remember now. But just a few years ago, sports betting was illegal in almost all of United States. And sports leagues and the media companies that worked with them wanted nothing to do with anything that even referenced gambling. Things are very, very different now! And it happened so quickly that very few people have stopped to ask wh…

1
How Silicon Valley really feels about Trump, TikTok and DeepSeek 51:15

5M ago51:15

51:15

I haven’t checked in with Jessica Lessin in some time — and I have to say I picked a pretty good time to catch up with her. Because Silicon Valley is undergoing something meaningful right now, and she’s in a great position to tell us more about it: Lessin is a veteran technology reporter who founded The Information in 2013, and it has been a go-to …

1
How TikTok (still) works 40:03

5M ago40:03

40:03

TikTok banned itself for less than a day. Now it’s back in the U.S. - despite a law that says it shouldn’t be operating. We’re not going to weigh in on all of the… weirdness around the last few days on this episode, in part because we don’t know how it’s going to play out. But in the meantime I wanted to talk to someone who knows how TikTok actuall…

1
How does Wall Street think about Trump, media and tech? 42:14

5M ago42:14

42:14

Why didn’t Meta’s stock move when Mark Zuckerberg announced his pro-MAGA pivot? Why do big media companies want to dump their cable TV networks — but hang on to their broadcast TV networks? What’s going to happen in Google’s antitrust case?These are all good questions, right? I think so, too. So I posed them, along with many more, to MoffettNathans…

1
Why Katie Notopoulos still loves the internet 55:43

5M ago55:43

55:43

I’m a lucky man. Whenever I’m baffled by the internet, and social media, I turn to my co-worker Katie Notopoulos, who is there to explain it to me. That’s because Katie’s job at Business Insider is to explain how the internet works — how the people who run big internet platforms want it to work, and what the people who actually use those platforms …

1
Looking back, and ahead, with Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw 44:51

6M ago44:51

44:51

I don’t love a lot of year-end #content . But I do love talking to Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw every year, to help put the year in media in perspective, and to think about what might be coming in 2025. And that’s exactly what we did here. Enjoy it now, or over your break. We’ll see you again in January. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastcho…

1
1440’s newsletters are short, popular and profitable 52:57

6M ago52:57

52:57

Newsletters are not a new idea. Yet every few years the media business rediscovers them, anyway — either as a way to quickly launch a startup with bigger ambitions, or as a standalone business. Tim Huelskamp took the second route in 2017, when he co-founded 1440 — a newsletter that promises to quickly bring you the most important news of the day. A…

1
Studying online bad behavior was hard. It's going to get harder in Trump 2.0 1:00:30

7M ago1:00:30

1:00:30

You probably shouldn't know Renee DiResta's name: She's a researcher who studies online bad behavior, not a celebrity. But the work DiReata did studying the "stop the steal" movement after 2020 has made her famous in some corners of the internet, and not in a good way: She's been harassed, pelted with subpoenas and sued twice. Now things could get …

1
How to build your own media company - without VCs or billionaires 54:08

7M ago54:08

54:08

Lots of people start media companies using money from rich people. Jason Koebler and his colleagues did it themselves, using a grand total of $4,000. That was back in the summer of 2023. Now 404 Media, the tech news + investigations site they started after leaving Vice Media, is a success story. Koebler tells us how they started, how it’s going, an…

1
Meet the man making money for Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly 45:38

7M ago45:38

45:38

Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Bari Weiss all used to work for big mainstream media companies. Now they’re on the internet, building their own companies, with the help of Chris Balfe. Balfe’s Red Seat Ventures helps online creators set up shop, produce programming, and — crucially — helps them monetize through ad sales and/or subscriptions. Balfe …

1
Taylor Lorenz on Joe Rogan, Joe Biden and goodbye to big media. 50:54

7M ago50:54

50:54

One take you may have heard after the election: Democrats need their own Joe Rogan. Taylor Lorenz disagrees. And Lorenz is worth listening to. For years, she has been a really sharp observer of social media and online spaces, and she built a high-profile career explaining the internet for audiences at places like the Atlantic, the New York Times an…

1
Elon Musk funds Trump — and owns Twitter. What does that mean? 1:13:48

8M ago1:13:48

1:13:48

You want up-to-the minute election analysis? Sorry, not on this episode. But: If you want smart thoughts about politics and media and tech all merged together? We got you here, courtesy of The Atlantic’s Charlie Warzel, who came on to discuss how we should think about Elon Musk, Donald Trump supporter, being the same person as Elon Musk, guy who ow…

1
Pod Save America’s Jon Lovett wants to win an election and make money 43:47

8M ago43:47

43:47

Jon Lovett and his cofounders at Crooked Media are a good story - former Obama aides who started their own media company after the 2016 election, and are now generating 25 million podcast downloads a month. But for a few weeks this summer, after they became prominent voices in the push to replace Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket, their story got …

1
Emma Tucker brought fresh eyes to the Wall Street Journal 33:21

8M ago33:21

33:21

Emma Tucker became the Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief in 2023, and she’s been moving fast ever since. For starters, there are punchier, more provocative stories and headlines. Just as important: She’s been making a series of cuts and staffing changes. That approach has its critics, but it also seems to be working: Subscriptions are up 7% in th…

1
Tubi CEO Anjali Sud says you can’t beat free 41:15

8M ago41:15

41:15

What if you could watch shows and movies on a screen, for free, in exchange for watching some ads? In olden times, we called that “TV”. Now the industry term is “advertising-based video on demand,” and it seems to be growing quite quickly. This is good news for Tubi, the AVOD/streamer Fox bought back in the spring of 2020, and for Anjali Sud, who h…

1
Behind the scenes of the Trump movie you almost never saw 1:07:21

8M ago1:07:21

1:07:21

What do Donald Trump and the video game industry have to do with each other? Nothing! Yet we’re combining them into a single podcast, anyway. First up: A chat with Gabriel Sherman, the longtime Vanity Fair reporter who wrote and produced “The Apprentice.” That’s the new Trump biopic that isn’t what you think it is, and is very much worth your time …

1
Matt Yglesias on the election, Substack success and the great unbundling 48:25

9M ago48:25

48:25

The last time I talked to Matt Yglesias, we were co-workers at Vox.com, and Joe Biden had just been elected president. Now Yglesias runs Slow Boring, a tremendously successful Substack, and I wanted to check back in. Discussed here: What a policy nerd does in an election that’s awfully light on policy; why hating the media is now a popular pastime …

1
I tried Orion, Mark Zuckerberg's $10k face computer 36:12

9M ago36:12

36:12

Mark Zuckerberg, along with most of the men running big tech companies, has spent many years and tons of money trying to put a computer on your face. Now it looks like he’s getting very close to making it a reality: He’s just debuted Orion, a pair of bulky — but not too bulky — glasses that are also a computer. You can’t buy these things yet - they…

1
YouTube CEO Neal Mohan wants to share the wealth 52:00

9M ago52:00

52:00

YouTube turns 20 next year, which makes it positively ancient by internet standards. Yet the world’s biggest video site is still incredibly relevant for huge swaths of the globe, even if it doesn’t get the media attention other sites generate. It’s also the only major social platform that routinely shares revenue with the users who create the stuff…

1
How David Remnick remade the New Yorker 46:10

9M ago46:10

46:10

When David Remnick got to the New Yorker in 1998, it was very much a capital M Magazine — it existed on ink and paper, and that was about it. Now it’s still a Magazine, but it’s also everything else you need to be to survive as a media company in 2024 — a robust online publisher, a podcast machine, a video operation, conference host and more. Along…

1
Welcome to Channels with Peter Kafka 1:37

9M ago1:37

1:37

What happens when you mash up media, tech and business? You get a million things to talk about, and that’s what we’ll be doing on this show: Talking to people who run big tech and media companies, the people who are doing some of the most interesting work in those worlds, and people who can help us understand all of it. And by “we” I mean “me” - I’…

1
That’s a wrap (for now) 38:23

1+ y ago38:23

38:23

Peter Kafka, soon to be formerly of Vox, reviews the year in media with Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw. What did we learn from the strikes? Is the bundle back? Are movies back? What’s going on with whatever the NBA is doing right now? And what’s up with Bob Iger saying he didn’t say something he definitely said on live TV? This is the last episode of “Reco…

1
Sam Altman’s back at OpenAI. What’s next? 47:23

1+ y ago47:23

47:23

After a wild series of events, Sam Altman is back as CEO of OpenAI… with more power than ever before. The Verge’s Alex Heath worked sleepless nights covering every twist and turn of this saga. He updates Vox’s Peter Kafka about where we are now, what all of this means moving forward, and how tech journalism can drive someone to mistake alcohol for …

1
What just happened to OpenAI? 29:52

1+ y ago29:52

29:52

The board of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, ousted CEO Sam Altman on Friday. Since then, the board has appointed not one, but two, interim CEOs. And Altman and his OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman got snatched up by Microsoft. The New York Times’ Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) joins Vox’s Peter Kafka to talk about what we know and what we don’t abou…

1
Why so, Sirius? 34:53

1+ y ago34:53

34:53

SiriusXM makes money by beaming music and talk radio - especially Howard Stern - to your car using satellites and selling monthly subscriptions. That turns out to be a surprisingly resilient business: The company has 34 million subscribers and $9 billion in annual revenue. But CEO Jennifer Witz knows she has to adapt to the streaming world, so she’…

1
No seriously. What’s the future of Disney? And why did Fox News fire Tucker Carlson? 51:03

1+ y ago51:03

51:03

It’s a double shot of media business takes, with conversations about the Walt Disney Corporation and Fox News, with references to “Succession” in both. First, CNBC’s Alex Sherman (@sherman4949) joins Vox’s Peter Kafka to talk about Disney’s strategy, or lack thereof. What does it want to do with ESPN? ABC? Marvel? Star Wars? And although it plans t…

1
Land of the Giants: What We All Got Wrong About Twitter 42:59

1+ y ago42:59

42:59

This week, an episode of the latest season of Land of the Giants: The Twitter Fantasy, hosted by our own Peter Kafka. If you like what you hear, be sure to subscribe! Twitter began life as an accident. In the beginning, even its founders weren’t sure what it was: the internet’s town square, a real-time information source, or the next Facebook, mayb…

1
How Dropout found success streaming comedy for $6 a month 32:45

1+ y ago32:45

32:45

When Sam Reich bought CollegeHumor from Barry Diller’s IAC for pennies in January 2020, the comedy site was long past its heyday. A few months later, the pandemic hit. It wouldn’t have been a surprise if CollegeHumor had vanished entirely. Instead, Reich pushed the company to lean into Dropout, the subscription streaming part of the business, and c…

1
Inside the New York Times’ controversial Gaza headline 21:35

1+ y ago21:35

21:35

The New York Times issued a rare editors’ note Monday: a mea culpa for a headline repeating unverified claims from Hamas that a Gaza hospital explosion was caused by an Israeli airstrike. Vanity Fair media reporter Charlotte Klein (@charlottetklein) obtained internal Slack messages from the Times’ editors which reveal an internal debate about the f…