The Startup Podcast Insiders React: Cloudflare Catches Perplexity Red-Handed + Wikipedia Adopts Anti-AI Slop Policy, AWS Losing Ground
In violation of long-standing internet norms like robots.txt, Cloudflare caught Perplexity AI scraping content from websites that had explicitly opted out.
The situation begs the question: what happens when AI startups prioritize growth over digital consent?
Listen as Chris and Yaniv discuss the repercussions of Cloudflare's "honeypot" traps. They also dig into Wikipedia’s launch of a fast-track deletion policy to counter the overwhelming number of low-effort, AI-generated articles, and consider whether Amazon's AWS is falling behind cloud rivals like Google, Microsoft, and Oracle.
In this episode, you will:
- Understand why Cloudflare accused Perplexity AI of ignoring internet norms
- Learn how robots.txt and internet trust are being undermined by AI crawlers
- Explore whether “move fast and break things” still applies in the AI era
- Discover how Wikipedia is fighting back against a flood of AI-generated slop
- Debate the moral vs. legal boundaries of disruptive startup behavior
- Hear why AWS may be falling behind Google, Microsoft, and even Oracle
- Examine what makes a wartime vs. peacetime CEO in the AI cloud race
- Consider whether AI is eating its own tail by destroying its data sources
The Pact
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Key links
Get your question in for our next Q&A episode: https://forms.gle/NZzgNWVLiFmwvFA2A
The Startup Podcast website: https://www.tsp.show/episodes/
Learn more about Chris and Yaniv
Work 1:1 with Chris: http://chrissaad.com/advisory/
Follow Chris on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrissaad/
Follow Yaniv on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ybernstein/
Producer: Justin McArthur https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-mcarthur
Intro Voice: Jeremiah Owyang https://web-strategist.com/