System Crash

Tech giants like Google and Facebook have conquered — some would say killed — the internet. Elon Musk used his platform to help elect Trump, and Silicon Valley elites want to gut the public sector. OpenAI and Microsoft aim to wipe away millions of jobs. Uber is driving down wages. Apple is impenetrable. Amazon is inescapable. All this high tech, and our quality of life is getting lower. The system has crashed.

So, System Crash: a weekly tech news show willing to tell the hard truths about how tech — and the titans who own and operate it — is really transforming the world. Co-hosts Paris Marx and Brian Merchant dissect the stories that matter, break news of their own, offer expert commentary, and interview journalists, whistleblowers, authors, and tech workers and ordinary people fighting back.

Podcasting since 2024 • 39 episodes

System Crash

Latest Episodes

System Crash Is Paused

Some news, as they say: System Crash is going on hiatus as Brian and Paris are overloaded with other projects they need to take care of. Thanks for plugging in, and stay tuned to this feed for updates on what's next.Until then, subscrib...

July 17, 2025 • 5:40

Palmer Luckey Wants to Arm the West With AI Weapons

Brian is out this week, so we’re dropping one of our bonus episodes to give you a preview of the benefits of supporting the show over on Patreon. In the episode, Brian and Paris dig into Anduril ...

July 11, 2025 • Episode 31 • 33:33

The Ban on State AI Laws is Dead, Canada Bows to Trump and Big Tech, and the AI Backlash Grows

This week on System Crash: Canada drops its digital services tax under pressure from Trump, the 10-year ban on state-level AI regulation is dead, and the backlash to generative AI just keeps growing. Plus, Peter Thiel and his buddies are starti...

July 04, 2025 • Episode 30 • 57:30

Patreon Preview: Mountainhead Exposes the Minds of the Tech Elite

This is a preview of System Crash’s monthly bonus episode, where Paris and Brian present the first System Crash Culture Club by interrogating the new film Mountainhead and how it gets into the minds of our Silicon Valley oligarchs. To ...

June 30, 2025 • 4:36

AI Has Its Day in Court and Tesla’s Robotaxis Are Already a Menace in Austin

This week on System Crash: A court rules Anthropic can train on copyrighted works as long as they’re not pirated, and Elon Musk rolls out Tesla’s Robotaxi service in Austin — with all the problems you’d expect. Plus, Australia’s social media ba...

June 27, 2025 • Episode 29 • 57:56

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