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.
Episodes
31 episodes
What Elon Musk’s “Exit” From White House Really Means and What’s Next for DOGE
This week on the show: Elon Musk is out at DOGE, kind of. He leaves with a black eye, literally. And figuratively. We dive into what Musk’s exit means for the Department of Government Efficiency, the role of the Tesla Takedown protests in tanki...
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Episode 26
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55:26
Sam Altman and Jony Ive Are Making an AI Device, OpenAI Gets Desperate, and Trump Goes After iPhones
This week on System Crash: Sam Altman and Jony Ive announce they’re expecting — a piece of AI hardware. Donald Trump wants to hit iPhones with a 25% tariff if Apple doesn’t start making them in the United States, and we discuss whether that’s p...
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Episode 25
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49:46
Teens Are Done with Big Tech’s Internet, Google Triples Down on AI, and Grok is Pro-White Genocide
This week on System Crash: A new poll shows that nearly half of all teens wish the internet simply did not exist, and what can we say, the children are the future. Meanwhile, the reason why the kids hate the internet are dead set on making it a...
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Episode 24
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56:35
Republicans Want to Ban AI Regulation, Our New Luddite Pope, and the Obscene Saudi Spectacle
This week on System Crash: The Vatican has spoken and we have a Luddite Pope; the Republicans are pushing a 10-year ban on state AI regulations to sate their tech industry friends; and Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia shows the power and geopolitic...
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Episode 23
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57:43
The AI Education and Jobs Crisis, OpenAI’s Corporate Drama, and Zuck’s AI Friends
This week on System Crash: AI madness hits a new peak: Mark Zuckerberg has a plan to give everyone AI companions, OpenAI’s boardroom drama gets a new chapter, and the impact of AI on education and work has become a full-fledged disaster.
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Episode 22
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1:00:33
Patreon Preview: Eric Schmidt’s Pivot to Military AI Salesman
This is a preview of System Crash’s monthly bonus episode, pulling back the curtain on former Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s pivot to a national security hawk using the threat of China to sell artificial intelligence to the military. To get the full...
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5:54
Canada Rejects DOGE, Bezos Caves to Trump, and the Tech Billionaire Signal Club
This week on System Crash: Mark Carney is elected prime minister of Canada with a promise to take on Trump and accelerate AI adoption. Jeff Bezos backs down on Amazon’s plans to display how much tariffs have increased prices. Tech billionaires ...
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Episode 21
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50:33
Tesla is Tanking. What That Means for Elon Musk and DOGE ft. Geoff Dembicki
Elon Musk is trying to clean up the mess his DOGE escapades have made for Tesla — and it’s not going very well. Brian and Paris dig into the terrible news he had to share in the company’s earnings call and whether we should really believe his c...
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Episode 20
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58:39
Science Fiction in the Days of American Authoritarianism ft. Annalee Newitz & Charlie Jane Anders
In the latest episode of our Elon In Power series, we’re joined by sci-fi authors and Our Opinions Are Correct co-hosts Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders to dig into how science fiction shaped Elon Musk, and how Musk uses it to shape his o...
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Episode 19
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40:12
What the Trade War Means for Tech, Musk, and American Workers
Liberation Day has come and gone, leaving Brian and Paris to pick up the pieces. So the Trump administration may or may not have used ChatGPT to whip up its half-assed plans to instigate a global trade war, which tanked the market for days on e...
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Episode 18
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48:36
OpenAI’s Massive Funding Round and Equally Massive Insult to Artists
After a few weeks of digging into Elon Musk’s past, Brian and Paris are taking a little break to dig into recent tech developments. They discuss the troubles facing Tesla, OpenAI’s new funding round, and the despicable display of AI-generated S...
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Episode 17
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53:44
How Elon Musk Used Tesla to Build His Power ft. Ed Niedermeyer
In our new series Elon In Power, we’re digging into the billionaire’s history to find out how he got to this point and what his past tells us about who he is today. For our second episode, Ludicrous author and Autonocast cohost Ed Nied...
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Episode 16
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1:10:49
Patreon Preview: The Trump Administration’s Crypto Dream
This is a preview of System Crash’s monthly bonus episode, breaking down the White House crypto summit and recent speeches by AI and crypto czar David Sacks praising Donald Trump. To get the full bonus episode, become
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5:56
SpaceX and the Foundation of Elon’s Empire ft. Lora Kolodny
In our new series Elon In Power, we’re digging into the billionaire’s history to find out how he got to this point and what his past tells us about who he is today. For our second episode, CNBC Digital tech reporter Lora Kolodny joins the ...
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Episode 15
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57:47
Elon in Power: The PayPal Mafia and Building the Myth of Musk ft. Max Chafkin
In our new series Elon In Power, we’re digging into the billionaire’s history to find out how he got to this point and what his past tells us about who he is today. For our first episode, Bloomberg senior reporter and author of The Contrari...
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Episode 14
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45:33
The Promise of a New Tech Era ft. Ed Ongweso Jr.
Donald Trump finally launched his trade war on Canada and Mexico. For two days. Some tariffs remain, and they could all be back in April, and who knows what happens then. As Trump abandons allies, there’s a lot of uncertainty—but there’s also o...
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Episode 13
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57:54
Paris and Brian Crash a BioTech Conference
In a break from chronicling Elon Musk’s takeover of the US government, Paris and Brian share some thoughts from Monterey, California, where they attended a convening to mark the 50th anniversary of the landmark Asilomar biotechnology conference...
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Episode 12
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55:44
Taking Down Tesla ft. Alex Winter
A media narrative has taken shape that there’s little resistance to Trump and Musk, but protests against the administration’s antidemocratic push for power are growing. In fact, they’re everywhere. This week Brian and Paris chat with actor, dir...
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Episode 11
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51:12
Patreon Preview: Decoding Peter Thiel’s Deeply Bizarre Manifesto
This is a preview of System Crash’s monthly bonus episode, looking into a recent op-ed by none other than Peter Thiel that gives us important insight into how he’s thinking and the political moment we find ourselves in. To get the full bonus ep...
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5:53
Silicon Valley Enters Its Imperial Era
Silicon Valley hard at work turning DC into an AI-fueled dystopia. This week Paris and Brian dig into three big trends all converging at once: Elon Musk’s expanding power over the federal government, JD Vance’s speech in France declaring Americ...
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Episode 10
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1:00:27
Elon Musk's Digital Coup and the Future of the Internet ft. Cory Doctorow
Paris is out this week, so we found another esteemed Canadian writer, activist, and tech critic to log in as System Crash's first-ever guest host: Cory Doctorow. Brian and Cory examine Elon Musk’s campaign of governmental destruction in Washing...
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Season 1
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Episode 9
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47:20
Did a Chinese Startup just Burst the AI Bubble? ft. Ed Zitron
Is the AI hype going to evaporate after Chinese startup DeepSeek shows it can do generative AI way cheaper than OpenAI, Anthropic, and big tech? AI watcher and tech PR guru Ed Zitron joins Brian and Paris to break down what the company has achi...
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Episode 8
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56:07
The Rise of the Silicon Oligarchy ft. Jacob Silverman
Trump’s back in office, Elon’s doing “awkward hand gestures,” and the oligarchy 2.0 is right behind them.This week on System Crash, Paris and Brian welcome special guest Jacob Silverman to dive into the grotesque spectacle of Trump’s se...
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Episode 7
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57:05
What Meta Wants From Donald Trump ft. Jason Koebler
Jason Koebler joins the show to chat with Paris and Brian about the looming TikTok ban (that got even less likely after we recorded) and what Mark Zuckerberg is really looking for from the Trump administration. Plus, the new Free the Feeds init...
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Episode 6
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1:01:54
Mark Zuckerberg Saves Free Speech
The new year has arrived, and luckily Mark Zuckerberg has started it by saving free speech! Brian and Paris break down the latest announcements from our benevolent social media overseer, what they signal about the tech oligarchy’s embrace of MA...
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Episode 5
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54:32