What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the...
Every Friday and Sunday, Slate’s popular daily news podcast What Next brings you TBD, a clear-eyed look into the future. From fake news to fake meat, algorithms to augmented reality, Lizzie O’Leary is your guide to the tech industry and the world it’s creating for us to live in.
51
Chatbots All The Way Down
Why AI companies are giving you the tech you want, but maybe not the tech you need.
22 min
52
How Elon Wields Power
You can’t run the country like a company. Musk is learning that the hard way.
30 min
53
Marc Andreessen’s New Deal
How the Silicon Valley kingmaker became a Washington mover and shaker.
22 min
54
Death of the Weather Forecast?
Climate and weather aren’t the same thing, but the Trump administration would have you understand neither one.
23 min
55
The Immigration Data Dragnet
25 min
56
The Baby Monitor Trap
How a device designed to give parents some space demands that they pay more attention than ever.
25 min
57
The U.S. vs Meta
The U.S. alleges Meta has a social media monopoly. Meta claims that in 2025, that's simply not true.
20 min
58
TikTok: Somehow Also Affected by the Tariffs
Like everything else, TikTok finds itself subject to changing winds of one President Trump.
18 min
59
Trump Tariffs Hit Mushroom Kingdom
How Nintendo tried to save their console princess.
20 min
60
Why Wall Street Can’t Quit Elon
Your 401k loves him too.
29 min
61
Where DOGE Is Taking Us
What happens when you run the government like how Elon Musk runs a business?
24 min
62
This Is Your Brain On Ketamine
And Silicon Valley's too.
22 min
63
We Made a Memecoin
Because—how hard could it be?
27 min
64
Bezos 2.0
How the Amazon founder went from Trump critic to Trump donor.
25 min
65
Trump's War on Scientific Research
Cutting NIH grants–even temporarily–could have repercussions for years to come.
26 min
66
How Trump Is Trying to Kill Press Freedom
Inside the movement targeting free speech.
26 min
67
Will Tesla Survive Elon Musk?
From “Eco-Friendly” to “Swastiscar”
23 min
68
Zuckerberg and the Post-Factcheck Era
Does Meta know what they’ve done?
26 min
69
From 4Chan to Charlottesville to DOGE
How the far-right internet conquered American politics.
27 min
70
Cracking the Egg Crisis
An eggsplanation.
18 min
71
The DOGE Resistance
Lawsuits, protests and Elon Musk's Achilles Heel
24 min
72
$Trump
Crypto poured money into the campaign, now the first family is cashing in.
21 min
73
Elon's Endgame
He's slashing the federal workforce. He's gutting programs he doesn't like. But at the end of the day, what does he want?
30 min
74
Can You Pay Attention, Please?
Chris Hayes discusses his new book that calls attention “the world’s most endangered resource.”
23 min
75
Is Elon Actually Trying to Buy OpenAI?
Elon Musk's bid to purchase OpenAI is both an attempt to control the future of A.I. and a massive troll.
20 min