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We try to make sense of the world, one question at a time. No question too big, no question too small.Hosted by PJ Vogt, edited by Sruthi Pinnamaneni. Named one of the best podcasts of all time by Time Magazine
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De nieuwste 50 van 149 afleveringen
- What was Jensen Huang thinking? · 43 min · Aflevering 158The world currently understands this week’s Jensen Huang story as a sex scandal, but the real engine of the drama may start much earlier. With a fight between Jensen Huang and…
- What would it mean for the Democrats to not screw this up? · 44 min · Aflevering 157The Democrats won a landslide victory in the midterms. How could they actually wield power effectively during Trump’s final two years. Or: how could they Charlie Brown another…
- What it’s like when Elizabeth Holmes decides to destroy your life · 1 u 9 min · Aflevering 156Elizabeth Holmes is the unlikely star of the year’s most talked-about movie, You Can See Everything. The Holmes we meet onscreen is enigmatic, enough so that some viewers have…
- Is your new co-worker secretly North Korean? · 46 min · Aflevering 155A new scam – aided by AI and remote work – is letting one of the most sanctioned regimes on Earth sneak tech workers into the American job market. How it works, what they’re like…
- One man could slow down AI. He won’t. Why? · 58 min · Aflevering 154Jensen Huang is CEO of the most valuable company in human history, NVIDIA. He is arguably the one person who could slow down the AI race. But he’s made a massive bet that AI is…
- Unreliable Narrator · 51 min · Aflevering 153An interview with a writer, Meghan O’Gieblyn, who started lying to herself about her relationship to alcohol and God. And afterwards wondered: when did it start? Why did it…
- Vladimir Putin's Forkiverse · 38 min · Aflevering 152Nine months ago, three podcasters attempted to build a better internet. Today -- they confront foreign adversaries on a digital battlefield.Watch the Machine Gods…
- Search Engine x Better in Person · 43 min · Aflevering 151Search Engine has some exciting news about the moving image to announce, and we’re sharing an interview we loved with an unusual architect.Check out the video version on…
- Bollywood Dreams · 1 u 5 min · Aflevering 150An email hits our inbox with the subject line: “My Dad is making a Bollywood Movie… is he being scammed?” We investigate. Become a premium subscriber.
- Why’s everybody going to Japan? · 51 min · Aflevering 149A Japanese listener gets so many houseguests she starts a spreadsheet to try to figure out what's going on. Why has American tourism to Japan gotten so out of control? The story…
- The Killing of the Gaza Chef · 49 min · Aflevering 148Mahmud Almadhoun ran a soup kitchen in the north of the Gaza Strip. In November 2024, he was killed. A reporter tries to answer a big question. Was Mahmud intentionally targeted?…
- The Chosen One · 48 min · Aflevering 147A listener asks: whose penis gets the top spot on the Wikipedia page for penis?Our quest for an answer takes us on a surprisingly philosophical journey — where we learn about the…
- A road trip through the data center debate · 39 min · Aflevering 146The midterms are approaching, and as the discourse heats up, one of the big new villains is: a kind of building. Data centers. Reporter Jasmine Sun took a road trip through two…
- How the Hugging Face hack happened · 38 min · Aflevering 145For the first time, an AI model has autonomously hacked a company. This week, an evolving story, a postcard from a strange, frightening moment in the story of our technology.A…
- What’s in your cocaine and the questions Search Engine CAN’T answer · 1 u 1 minAn interview with a cocaine salesman about cocaine adulterants, plus – questions Search Engine can’t answer, with special guest Kelefa Sanneh. Become a premium subscriber!
- How to pursue excellence … in noodles (unlocked bonus) · 48 minThe world right now, seems tilted towards the good enough. The AI-written wedding toast, the half-assed attempt. Despite this, a handmade noodle shop is trying to make perfect…
- Why didn’t Chris and Dan get into Berghain? Pt. 2 (classic) · 1 u 10 minWe travel to Germany to trace techno’s history from Detroit to Berlin. The story of how, after the Wall fell, Berlin exorcised its brutal past with a very strange, decade-long…
- Why didn’t Chris and Dan get into Berghain? Pt. 1 (classic) · 53 minTwo Americans embark on a quest: fly across an ocean to try to get into the most exclusive nightclub in the world – Berghain. A German techno palace where the line outside can…
- A Strange Voyage · 1 u 0 min · Aflevering 144This month, SpaceX had the largest IPO in all of human history. In a mission to understand a bewildering moment, we trace the story of the stock market itself. From its very…
- Why doesn’t anybody come to my parties? · 47 min · Aflevering 143Claire Haber-Harris has a question. When she sends out an invitation, why does she get a tidal wave of excuses and no's? How could someone claim to have had the same stomach…
- Why is the pool at Buckingham Palace a secret? (classic) · 1 u 8 minAn investigation into a mysterious room. A room that the most famous family in England apparently does not want you to see.Support the show!
- Why do we have to pay into the new Anti-Weaponization Fund? · 40 min · Aflevering 142The President has created a 1.776 billion dollar fund of taxpayer money he can direct to whoever he wants. Huh? How did this happen, and what might happen next? We talk to Pro…
- The many lives of Taiwan · 1 u 6 min · Aflevering 141We go deep into the story of Taiwan. How a tiny island escaped demise, chartered a course from colonial subjugation through mass Barbie production and into the technological…
- Why are people excited about nuclear power again? · 50 min · Aflevering 140Nuclear energy was a taboo for decades, but it’s coming back, it’ll power AI data centers for Google and Microsoft. What does new nuclear technology look like, and why do the…
- What if the cemetery goes out of business? (classic) · 50 minWe're supposed to be buried there forever, right? Right?? Answers this week from writer David Sloane, who grew up in a cemetery and spent his adult life studying them. The…
- Where’s the best free restaurant bread in America? · 39 min · Aflevering 139An enterprising reporter goes on a quest to find the restaurant serving the absolute best free bread in this country, and finds it. She returns to Search Engine with her results…
- The Cost of War · 49 min · Aflevering 138The United States has begun a conflict with Iran that two thirds of the American public does not understand. One question we can try to answer: how much is this conflict costing…
- What we got wrong about GLP-1s · 46 min · Aflevering 137Search Engine is breaking its cowardly three-year silence on GLP-1s. We have been curious about them. We have been afraid of getting in trouble. We are no longer afraid. A…
- The Trial of the Driverless Car · 1 u 3 min · Aflevering 136In blue cities throughout the country, unions and politicians are fighting to ban driverless cars. We travel to Boston, where the fight has reached a fever pitch, and where the…
- Are you a good driver? · 1 u 6 min · Aflevering 135The story of how a secret project at Google led to driverless cars on American roads. And, an answer to the question: are the robots actually safer drivers than we are? Driven…
- Mysteries of Claude · 49 min · Aflevering 134Anthropic hired philosophers to teach its AI to be good. In their tests, the AI blackmailed a human to keep itself alive. Writer Gideon Lewis-Kraus went inside the company to…
- Why don’t we eat people? (classic) · 58 minA question from a four-year-old tips us into an investigation of one of our most fundamental taboos: cannibalism. With help from New Yorker food critic Hannah Goldfield and…
- How Peptides Conquered the Internet · 45 min · Aflevering 133Two decades ago, bodybuilders on niche internet forums started injecting peptides. Now they're in the secret mini-fridges of some teenage boys. How did they get there? We track…
- Are flushable wipes actually flushable? · 56 min · Aflevering 132A simple question leads us on a journey from the bowels of New York City through the courtrooms of South Carolina to the disgusting truth. Support Search Engine!
- The Venezuelan Curse (Part 2) · 59 min · Aflevering 131The conclusion to our story about Venezuela. How a country goes from a prosperous democracy to a poverty-ravaged dictatorship. The End (our 2022 episode on Greenland) The Many…
- The Venezuelan Curse (Part 1) · 1 u 6 min · Aflevering 130For the past year, there's been a steady drumbeat of headlines about Venezuela. Now the US has invaded, arrested its president, and installed itself in charge. To understand how…
- The Fediverse Experiment · 39 min · Aflevering 129Our present version of the internet is arguably the worst it’s ever been. Which means – any shot at changing things, even an unlikely one – is worth trying out. Three podcasters…
- A Perfectly Average Anomaly · 56 min · Aflevering 128A man walks into an airport body scanner, and with eerie consistency, the machine flags the exact same part of his body. What could be going on? Search Engine investigates a…
- Unlocked: The State of Search Engine 2025 · 49 minAs a special, one-time holiday treat, we're sharing something we only usually offer on our premium feed, Incognito Mode. Our annual board meeting! We talk about what shopping a…
- What's the best phone to do crimes on? (classic) · 60 minFor years, the must-have phone for the discerning drug trafficker or hitman was a brand you may not have heard of: AN0M. Reporter Joseph Cox tells us the story of the AN0M phone…
- How to talk (or not talk) politics at family holidays · 36 min · Aflevering 127This week, in honor of the holiday season — can you, should you change your family’s politics through holiday conversation. If so, how? A conversation with Ezra Klein. Support…
- Colossus 2 · 43 min · Aflevering 126In part two of our story about Elon Musk’s growing data center empire, we visit the battle between people in Memphis and xAI. And we try to understand a strange, untested…
- Colossus 1 · 42 min · Aflevering 125Tech billionaires have made an enormous bet on AI, the biggest bet that tech has made on anything in a very long time. Reporter Sruthi Pinnamaneni goes on a journey – from Data…
- An Anthropology of Gooners · 44 min · Aflevering 124A reporter spends a year diving into a subculture of young men online who unite around their extreme commitment to constant, unadulterated porn consumption. Why are they doing…
- America vs. China · 57 min · Aflevering 123People review everything, but they almost never review what it’s like to live in another country. Until now. We interview a writer who’s lived in China, covered China, and has…
- The Rage in the Cage · 52 min · Aflevering 122Can you tickle your way to victory in an MMA fight? An investigation into a sports scandal with journalist Pablo Torre. See videos mentioned in this episode. Check out Pablo…
- Cocomelon For Adults · 47 min · Aflevering 121Last week, OpenAI released an app that quickly shot to the #1 spot in Apple's App Store. Sora is like TikTok, except all the videos are AI generated. Is this ... what we're doing…
- Is my favorite new TV show this year a ripoff? · 47 min · Aflevering 119The makers of the medical drama The Pitt have been sued. The allegation: that the show is an unauthorized copy of ER. This week, investigative reporter Nicholas Kulish walks us…
- The Obituary · 53 min · Aflevering 118Not long after Alex’s wife Whitney dies, he looks at her obituary and discovers something strange. A sect of people online has hijacked her story and turned it into a disturbing…
- How does a rationalist make a baby? · 48 min · Aflevering 117A member of an unusual Bay Area community decides to try to have a baby in an unusual way – by putting out a very large prize for anyone who can help her find a mate. How the…
