Cryptocurrency started the year strong. But as 2022 ends, what was supposed to be a revolutionary way to buy, save and invest has collapsed. The price of nearly every cryptocurrency has plunged. Multiple businesses built specifically around them have cratered.
Now, members of Congress are calling for more stringent regulations around crypto. But would regulations change cryptocurrency so much that it would essentially stop being crypto? Today, the over-talked-about, often under-understood world of crypto. Read the full transcript here.
The Urban Institute and ProPublica published a study in 2018 that found that 56% of workers 50 or older said they were pushed out of jobs they’d had for a long time and long before they wanted to retire. Reset hears from Mary O’Donnell, president of RRF Foundation for Aging, and Tom Kuczmarski, member of RRF Board of Trustees and founder of Kuczmarski Innovation consulting firm, who say we’re in a unique moment to tackle ageism in the workplace.
This week, erstwhile co-host Andy Liu joins Jay and Tammy to look back on 2022. (A note from Mai, our producer: Paid subscribers can get the full version of this ep, with some bonus banter about gambling, parental virtue signaling, etc.! Also, we recorded a week ago, so please forgive dated references to Morocco in the World Cup, Elon, and Jay’s not-yet-born second child.)
Twenty twenty-two was big for TTSG’s resident parents. Andy and his wife Reiko had their second kid in May, and Jay and his wife Casey just welcomed their second child this week!
Speaking of kids, [14:10] Andy gets the podsquad to analyze Fear of Falling, Barbara Ehrenreich’s 1989 study of U.S. middle-class identity and the “professional managerial class.” We dissect Ehrenreich’s theories about educational capital, anxiety over class decline, and how this feeling of precarity animates many Americans’ concepts of the family. Plus: Malcolm Harris’s contribution to the discourse; and [31:30] Andy’s take on labor unrest in academia and a less exploitative vision for higher education.
[41:10] Next, Tammy talks geopolitics and the bellicose, paranoid shift spurred by the war in Ukraine. Have we moved past the era of “stateless” threats (i.e., the War on Terror) and returned to a global order that pits the U.S. against China and Russia? What of the super-statist international cooperation we imagined in our youth, and what does the Ukraine war mean for small countries? We also talk about the ever-increasing (and rarely disputed) defense spending in the U.S. as well as Korea's rising profile as an arms dealer to the world.
[52:50] Last, Jay observes that race and identity have recently come to feel less central to our national discourse. Why the lackluster defense of affirmative action? Why is there so little public anger over police killings? We try to unpack the many possible causes—anxiety about the midterms, inflation, media skew—and ask whether the shift is ultimately good or bad.
Elon Musk may be stepping down as chief executive, but he has already changed the firm’s fortunes—and shown that social media’s free-speech struggle is far from over. A bit of fried dough in Kenya reveals how cost-of-living concerns in Africa manifest as shrinkflation. And why members of South Korea’s pop behemoth BTS are headed into the armed forces.
Max Lukichev is a deeply technical guy, which means his hobbies have been related to tech since the early days. He is a PhD in computer science, and has always been interested in building things. In fact, and his words, he has been building drones since back before they were cool. Overall, he likes to figure out how things work. Outside of tech, he is a family man, and make sure that his kids have all kinds of STEM tools.
After spending decades in the enterprise data space, Max experienced first hand the struggles around data anomaly detection. He constantly lived in escalation mode, and saw first hand that traditional rules and static dashboard based solutions were failing today's data needs. He set out to be part of the solution.
Rob is joined by ‘Bandsplain’ host Yasi Salek to read some of your fan mail and answer questions. Why do you live in Ohio? Which band do you regret not having an episode on? Nirvana or Pearl Jam? Tune in to hear Rob answer these questions and more.
Casey Newton is the editor of Platformer and co-host of Hard Fork. He joins Big Technology Podcast to keep up an annual tradition of looking back on the year that was, and looking ahead to the year that will be. In this episode, we review the wild developments at Twitter, the decline of Web3, and Amazon and Meta's progress in 2022. Then, we predict what will take place with ChatGPT, state bans on content moderation, Substack's ad business, and Apple's App Store. Tune in for one of our most fun shows of the year.
If you like Big Technology Podcast, please rate it five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice. (Big thank you to all who rated in the past few weeks!!).
Laura answers a listener’s question about how to create a financial plan. It’s an excellent guide when you’re unsure what to do with your money or want to focus on the best financial resolutions for the upcoming year.
