697: Office of Defects

697: Office of Defects

Author: Jason DeFillippo & Brian Schulmeister with Dave Bittner May 17, 2025 Duration: 1:17:16
This week on Grumpy Old Geeks: Trump hawks crypto for $2 million a plate; Elon tunnels into taxpayer wallets; NFTs get nonprofit’d into irrelevance; Microsoft axes more staff while Metaverse washouts DoorDash from trailers; Klarna backpedals on AI; the Pope targets robots; Elon’s Copyright coup crashes; YouTube bans fake trailers; Jamie Lee Curtis slashes at Zuck; Tesla implodes again; the universe might peace out early; Murderbot lands May 16; NIN spawns a new fest; Star franchises get nostalgic; Jessica Jones and Nobody return; Dave’s customer support tales go full Kafka; and yes, there’s a haunted Mickey, cat toilets, and birthday botched florals—because reality is optional now.

There’s a certain flavor of chaos that defines the technology industry each week, and Grumpy Old Geeks serves as your brutally honest guide through the wreckage. Hosted by Jason DeFillippo, Brian Schulmeister, and Dave Bittner, this isn't a polite roundtable discussion. Instead, it feels like grabbing a drink with friends who have seen it all and have absolutely no patience left for corporate spin or broken promises. They pick apart the biggest tech news stories with a seasoned, cynical eye, always asking the messy questions about what actually went wrong and who should be held accountable. Listening to this podcast is like getting the unfiltered post-mortem from veterans who remember when the internet felt different. The tone is sharp, often funny, and deliberately irreverent-picture a conversation that’s equal parts informed critique and cathartic venting about the state of digital life. You’ll hear them dissect the moves of figures like Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg not as distant celebrities, but as players in a ongoing saga of power and missteps. It’s a weekly ritual for anyone who loves technology but is deeply frustrated by the direction it often takes, offering analysis that’s as informed as it is impatient. If you’re tired of sanitized tech commentary and want a take that pulls no punches, this is the place.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Grumpy Old Geeks
Podcast Episodes
682: We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Luigi [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:27:25
Brian and Jason kick things off with a look at why Gen Z grads are getting fired just months after landing jobs and a curiously viral declassified CIA sabotage guide. Speaking of sabotage, U.S. students are struggling wi…
681: Trough of Disillusionment [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:23:28
Brian, Jason, and Dave dive into the chaos of tech, media, and politics, covering everything from Elon Musk’s bizarre admission to paying people to play video games for him to Trump’s controversial pardon of Silk Road cr…
680: Failed Up [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:03:57
This week on Grumpy Old Geeks, Jason and Brian dissect the latest tech and cultural news, starting with a TikTok tempest. The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a law potentially banning the app in the U.S. leaves the ba…
679: Set Sanity to Zero [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:23:49
In Episode 679 of Grumpy Old Geeks, “Set Sanity to Zero,” Brian and Jason tackle tech news, cultural trends, and AI advancements, from wildfire apps and deepfake legislation to Meta controversies and AI-powered innovatio…
1: Grumpy Old Geeks Trailer [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 0:57
As one of the longest-running podcasts, "Grumpy Old Geeks" discovers what went wrong on the Internet, and who's to blame. Every week they cut through the BS from big tech and tell you what's really going on. With wide-ra…
678: Stop Doing That! [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:20:46
WordPress has officially jumped the pineapple, forcing users to agree that pineapple belongs on pizza to log in. Critics call it a kindergarten move, especially when serious feature requests are ignored. Meanwhile, the c…
677: What’s in the Bag?! [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 56:37
In this episode, Jason DeFillippo and Brian Schulmeister dig into the Hawk Tuah meme coin disaster and where influencer-driven crypto schemes go off the rails, leaving chaos in their wake. They unpack WP Engine’s big win…
676: Gay Nuclear Frogs [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:14:57
We dive into the TikTok ban drama, Elon Musk’s Tesla pay controversy, and a Chinese ship crew allegedly sabotaging undersea cables. In the news, the former Celsius CEO pleads guilty, Canadian media takes on OpenAI, and E…
675: A Thanksgiving Blast from the Past with Tim Ferriss [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:07:01
This week, author Tim Ferriss is our special guest. Tim sat with us for an hour, and we talked about his new show on HLN, his fantastic new book club, cool stuff about the quantified self, sleep hacking, and more. We eve…
675: Your Own Personal Jesus [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:19:34
In this episode of Grumpy Old Geeks, we dive into the wild, wacky, and often worrying world of tech, media, and everything in between. From a Swiss church using AI to preach the gospel to OpenAI facing a copyright conund…