Nov 6, 2026 · 1h 44m
Election backlash puts Big Tech on defense
Big Tech lost big in the 2026 election
The episode connects a Democratic midterm victory to rising skepticism of AI’s costs, weaker tech influence, and tougher scrutiny ahead.
- 1Democratic gains could accelerate privacy laws, data-center negotiations, and congressional investigations into technology companies.
- 2AI search and agents face a difficult business model as chatbots threaten web traffic without replacing advertising economics.
- 3The hosts argue that tech companies have lost public goodwill and must deliver genuinely useful products to resist regulation.
Don't miss
The hosts use extremely small AI-agent order totals from Uber, DoorDash, and Uber Eats to puncture claims that agents are already mainstream.
The brief
The hosts read the Democrats’ sweeping 2026 victory as a warning to Big Tech: public anger over corruption, data centers, and AI’s costs is becoming policy pressure.
They predict more state privacy laws, data-center negotiations, and congressional investigations while arguing that technology companies have lost the goodwill that once protected them.
OpenAI’s challenge to Google search exposes a deeper problem: AI can disrupt the web’s traffic economy, but advertising and affiliate models may not cover chatbot costs.
Tiny order counts from Uber, DoorDash, and Uber Eats undercut the impression that AI agents are mainstream, while brittle automation makes users wary of surrendering passwords and payments.
The episode closes on hardware and power: a touchscreen MacBook Pro, SpaceX’s wireless ambitions, Sam Altman’s local-computing argument, and the ethics of generative photo editing.
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