SED News is a monthly podcast from Software Engineering Daily where hosts Gregor Vand and Sean Falconer unpack the biggest stories shaping software engineering, Silicon Valley, and the broader tech industry.
In this episode, they discuss Perplexity’s headline-grabbing offer to buy Google Chrome, the U.S. government’s large stake in Intel, Meta’s abrupt pause on AI hiring, and a reality check on what “agentic” systems can actually deliver today versus the hype.
They also dive into standout discussions from Hacker News, including a proposal to curb “ghost job” postings with stricter transparency rules, an interactive Big-O explainer, and more.

Gregor Vand is a security-focused technologist, having previously been a CTO across cybersecurity, cyber insurance and general software engineering companies. He is based in Singapore and can be found via his profile at vand.hk or on LinkedIn.
The post SED News: Perplexity’s Chrome Play, Meta’s AI Freeze, and Intel Becomes Too Big to Fail appeared first on Software Engineering Daily.