The Year in Tech w/ Jathan Sadowski & Brian Merchant

Paris Marx is joined by Jathan Sadowski and Brian Merchant to reflect on the year in tech, discuss the worst people in Silicon Valley, and share what they’ll be keeping an eye on in 2026.

Jathan Sadowski is the author of The Mechanic and the Luddite, co-host of This Machine Kills, and a Senior Lecturer at Monash University. Brian Merchant is the author of Blood in the Machine and writes a newsletter of the same name.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Kyla Hewson.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Visit Francesca Bria’s useful Authoritarian Stack

• Trump signs an executive order to keep states from implementing their own AI legislation

• The Trump administration is gutting the Department of Education, climate science programs, and public health

• Disney and OpenAI have reached a billion dollar deal

• Bernie Sanders calls for a moratorium on AI data centre construction