Soundtrack: Spinnerette - The Walking Dead - (Alt: Postmodern Jukebox - Radioactive)
Thanks so much to everybody that has supported me in the last year. This newsletter started as a way for me to process the complex feelings I have about the technology industry, and still remains, in a way, as a kind of side project, as I still run my PR firm during the day. I also apologize for sending you another email.
Anyway, the newsletter has now grown into something altogether larger and more important to me, both personally and professionally. It has allowed me to meet and get to know some incredible people, as well as deepen friendships with others I’ve known for years, all while helping me understand what’s happening in an industry I find both fascinating and frustrating.
As I hit publish on this email, Where’s Your Ed At has over 49,250 subscribers, and regular read rates of 55-59%, numbers that have stayed consistent for years. Where’s Your Ed At - as a place on the web - had over 1.8 million unique visitors. In the last four years I’ve published over 800,000 words, and it is very cool to see it go anywhere. I had no plan and still do not have one.
It has been quite a year.
As a direct result of writing the newsletter, I was recruited by Cool Zone Media (best known for Behind The Bastards and It Could Happen Here), and worked with them to create Better Offline, which has been this year’s fastest-growing tech podcast, and was called one of the best podcasts of 2024 by Esquire, New York Magazine and The Information. It has turned into a bizarre mixture of talk radio and spoken word oratory, something truly unique, and I am extremely proud of it. Robert Evans and Sophie Lichterman have been incredible bosses, as have my producers Matt Osowski, Ian Johnson, Danl Goodman and Eva Warrender.
In the latter-half of the year, I sold a book to Penguin Random House - the upcoming Why Everything Stopped Working, which should be out sometime in 2026, and I intend it to be the best thing I’ve ever written. I will be honest, I am still shocked this happened. Nevertheless, I will write the shit out of it. My editor (Megan Wenerstrom) and agent (William Callahan) are, much like Robert and Sophie, fully behind me and what I believe in.
Also, if you missed my speech at Web Summit, do watch it.
It is still ridiculous to me that any of this happened. A year ago, I had 22,000 subscribers, had just signed the contract for Better Offline, and felt, if I’m honest, kind of lost, a feeling I’ve had on-and-off for about two years. I liked writing, but I didn’t love writing the newsletter. I’d also, for whatever reason, yet to really feel confident writing about big tech, because I figured there was something I was missing.
So I tried to work it out. I have never been a financial or investigative journalist (I was a games journalist over 16 years ago), so a lot of this was learning on the go. This is why I wrote an investigation about the NFT-turned-AI-doodad company Rabbit out of nowhere, which led to an interview with CoffeeZilla, which was both cool to be on and a sign that I could do “this,” even if “this” was a touch vague. Before this year I had never written any kind of financial analysis - I am very proud of both How Does OpenAI Survive? and OpenAI Is A Bad Business, along with more opinion-analysis pieces like The Subprime AI Crisis and The Other Bubble.
But, yeah, no matter how fancy I get with it, everything you’ve read this year has been me trying to work out what the fuck was going on - why these companies keep making money while their products get worse, which is why you’ve seen me dedicated tens of thousands of words trying to explain what happened to Google Search and Facebook, Shareholder Supremacy, and then why I’m so anxious about the AI bubble popping - because there’s nothing left afterwards. Every single AI piece I’ve written this year - my biggest being Pop Culture - has been me trying to work out what the hell is going on. This is why my latest AI piece sounds like the crazed scientist at the beginning of a disaster movie - I am alarmed! There will be measurable damage to the stock market, but more importantly tens of thousands of people will lose their jobs and a depression will begin in the tech industry.
Every time I am worried I’ve gone too hard, or been a little too emotional, I get surprised by the outpouring of support, from people who feel the same frustration and outrage. I felt like I’d gone a little too hard on Lost In The Future (and its sister episode of Better Offline, The Rot Society), but the reaction was people saying they felt the same way, something I’m happy to say happened again with Never Forgive Them, which is my favourite thing I’ve ever written, and the hardest I’ve gone.
Anyway, long story short, the format of this newsletter has matured into something weird and cool. I am so glad people enjoy it. It is slightly insane to regularly write 3000 to 5000 words in which I combine financial, cultural and economic analysis with calling people scumbags, but I enjoy doing it. I hope you continue reading. I work very hard on it.
It wouldn’t be my newsletter without me writing “as an aside” and then doing a quote:
While I am not doing a belabored list of thank yous, but there is one name that cannot be left out: Matt Hughes, my editor, who has edited over a hundred of my pieces and scripts, as well as being one of my closest friends, somebody that riffed with me for hours and made so many ideas sharper. Whenever I have flinched away from an idea, fearing I’d gone too far, Matt would hold me up and not just reassure me, but walk me through the logical backing of the argument - a true friend makes their friend stronger. Thank you Matt. You make this newsletter both possible and much, much better. I am eternally grateful. Let’s make these fucking people take responsibility for once in their lives.
I love what I do, and I am so lucky to be able to do it. I really am grateful for you reading my work, and though this is me trying to work stuff out as I go, I am also doing my best to deeply research and provide real, meaningful analysis. It is a deeply personal journey for me, one that has allowed me to develop more as a person and be able to speak with more clarity, purpose and vigor, and as wanky as that sounds, all I can tell you is that I’m exactly the same as this in person, except I tell my friends I love them way more.
I sound a little ridiculous writing about a blog and a podcast as if I’m talking about playing the violin (which I cannot do), but I am proud of my work and find it deeply meaningful, as well as something that has enriched my life. I will continue to use it to, at the very least, provide you with some clarity about the world, and promise to do so with sincerity.
I am genuinely so thankful for every minute you give anything I create.
At CES, I’ll be trying something new - I’ll be running a week-long live-to-tape radio show, with two 90 minute episodes a day taking a temperature check of the tech industry, joined by David Roth of Defector and tech critic Edward Ongweso Jr., joined by a host of different tech reporters, at least one priest, Robert Evans of Behind The Bastards and Gare Davis of It Could Happen Here.
It’s yet another ambitious and weird idea that I intend to at the very least make a lot of fun. If you’re a reporter reading this and want to join - ez@betteroffline.com, let’s make it happen, we’re recording Tuesday through end of Saturday. We’ll have food and drink.
Similarly, next year I’ll be spending a lot more of my life in New York City, I’ll be starting up Radio Better Offline, a regular tech talk show recorded at iHeartRadio’s NYC studios within the Better Offline podcast. Each week I’ll have two or three tech people in the studio, and want to create a kind of lively, meaningful and exciting talk radio setting for the tech industry.
The tech industry - especially within tech journalism - has such an incredible variety of people, both normal and otherwise, and I want to bring their voices to their ears. I feel like tech reporters regularly feel isolated and crushed by this industry, and I want Better Offline - and Radio Better Offline in particular - to help fight back. Reporters are also regularly robbed of the opportunity to build their own brands while at their publications - come on Better Offline, I'll put you on a great-sounding podcast with a huge audience where people will hear your voice, be directed to your work and social media, and remember you, not just the place you work. I will do my damndest to bring on as many of you as I can.
Anyway. So many people have helped me in so many ways this year, and I'm eternally grateful. Members of the tech, business and political media, software engineers, data analysts, academics, scientists, all endlessly generous and helpful. I will do my best to pay forward and back the generosity of time, love and support that I've received.
Outside of next week's 3-part year-end series of Better Offline, I am taking a break until mid-January. It has been a long year for all of us. Please take care of yourselves. Thanks for reading and listening to my stuff.
If you somehow haven’t subscribed to my podcast, please subscribe to my podcast, then download every episode. I need download numbers. I need you to help me. I need you to download every single one then force your family and friends to do it too.
Despite the size of this newsletter, email me at ez@betteroffline.com. I do my best to respond to every reply, DM and email. I am super online.
I also realize I’ve never written out all my social handles.
Ones I actually use:
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com (my least normal social media)
Instagram: http://instagram.com/edzitron (my most normal social media)
Ones that I don’t really touch much:
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/edzitron
Threads: http://www.threads.net/edzitron
If you see an edzitron it’s probably me. I think I’m ezitron on TikTok?
