TBPN
Shares rank 25 of 42 podcasts by recommenders
Recommended for finding new tech news and as background listening; critics say it is too soft on tech companies and tied to OpenAI, so it is not objective journalism.
Recommended for finding new tech news and as background listening; critics say it is too soft on tech companies and tied to OpenAI, so it is not objective journalism.
21 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 15
- approval share
- 29%
Recommended in 1 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 1 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Soft on tech, not objective
“They came across as the yes men of podcasts for tech people that want to pretend they are doing no wrong”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “OpenAI Acquires TBPN” “the podcast that will pretend that popular opinion is absurd and big tech is always right”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “OpenAI Acquires TBPN” “They are not the "tough questions" kind of place.”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “OpenAI Acquires TBPN” - Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “OpenAI Acquires TBPN”
Odd, fake-feeling presentation style
“the presentation is some weird mix of ESPN and Mad Money that I personally don't get”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “OpenAI Acquires TBPN” “This sounds like a fake podcast they would make fun of on Silicon Valley”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “OpenAI Acquires TBPN” “seems like the media equivalent of Soylent”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “OpenAI Acquires TBPN” Seen as OpenAI-linked promotion
“open ai acquires an somewhat media established group to push their corporate propaganda”
Comment from 3 Apr 2026 in “OpenAI Acquires TBPN” “I thought this was OpenAI's time to get _less_ memey, not more.”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “OpenAI Acquires TBPN” “Sora, TBPN, the Jony Ive boondoggle are a few easy ones.”
Comment from 2 Jun 2026 in “OpenAI frontier models and Codex are now available on AWS” Valuation and business seem excessive
“This channel is less than 2 years old, <60k subs, most of their videos have low view rates”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “OpenAI Acquires TBPN” “60K followers on youtube for low hundreds of millions? seems steep”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “OpenAI Acquires TBPN” “Just seems like a money grab (tbpn founders getting a massive rip)”
Comment from 3 Apr 2026 in “OpenAI Acquires TBPN”
Other podcasts people recommend
The four most recommended other podcasts, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dwarkesh Podcast | 29 | 8 | 78% | 9 | — | Approved |
| Oxide and Friends | 26 | 3 | 90% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Acquired podcast | 25 | 0 | 100% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Behind the Bastards podcast | 18 | 1 | 95% | 11 | — | Approved |
| TBPNThis page | 6 | 15 | 29% | 1 | — | — |
What people said
20 of the 23 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Sora, TBPN, the Jony Ive boondoggle are a few easy ones.”
“I happen to like listening to TBPN for discovery purposes.”
“The extremely uninformative website isn't helping much.”
“Very high signal to noise ratio!”
“Just seems like a money grab (tbpn founders getting a massive rip)”
“open ai acquires an somewhat media established group to push their corporate propaganda”
“This channel is less than 2 years old, <60k subs, most of their videos have low view rates”
“It's also slow as hell. It takes like 200ms for the social media buttons to change color upon hover.”
“I can't listen to TPBN though it seems fun”
“the podcast that will pretend that popular opinion is absurd and big tech is always right”
“They came across as the yes men of podcasts for tech people that want to pretend they are doing no wrong”
“They are not the "tough questions" kind of place.”
“This sounds like a fake podcast they would make fun of on Silicon Valley”
“60K followers on youtube for low hundreds of millions? seems steep”
“seems like the media equivalent of Soylent”
“It's CNBC for Silicon Valley - a combination of good background noise”
“it was never objective journalism”
“the presentation is some weird mix of ESPN and Mad Money that I personally don't get”
“why the hell is the TBPN website so InfoWars-coded?”
“I thought this was OpenAI's time to get _less_ memey, not more.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.