The UnPodcast

The UnPodcast

By Scott Stratten, Alison StrattenBusinessEntrepreneurshipEducationHow ToMarketing
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The UnPodcast episodes

  • The Oat Milk Tax and the Great Sunbed War | Ep. 332

    In this episode:

    • Coffee chains face a class action over allegedly inflated charges for nondairy milk.
    • Scott reveals that his coffee standards are both extremely specific and deeply Canadian.
    • The crew discovers it may need an oat milk diversity hire.
    • Hotels crack down on guests reserving sunbeds with towels before sunrise.
    • A vacationer wins compensation after spending his holiday fighting the “sunbed wars.”
    • Why outsourced service problems still become your reputation problem.
    • A hotel allegedly cancels a longtime conference to chase higher NBA Finals rates.
    • Why abandoning loyal customers for a sudden payday can cost more than the extra revenue.

      • Listen if you care about customer loyalty, ridiculous fees, vacation etiquette, reputation management, and businesses lighting long-term relationships on fire for a quick buck.

      Articles:

      Overpriced Oat milk 

      Sunbed Wars 

      NBA Hotel Betrayal 

      00:00 The Fourth Episode Goes Off the Rails

      01:44 The Oat Milk Markup Lawsuit
      07:09 The Sunbed Wars
      14:38 The NBA Hotel Betrayal
      20:38 Knicks in Five

       

      22 min
    • The Pope Loophole, Concert Price Gouging, and Dog Burritos | Ep. 331

      In this episode:

      • A software developer successfully uses a religious exemption to avoid mandatory AI at work.
      • A bank CEO calls employees “lower-value human capital,” then makes the apology worse.
      • High ticket prices leave concerts full of blue dots and touring artists buried in costs.
      • Dave Ramsey blames remote work problems on employees making burritos for their dogs.
      • Why return-to-office mandates often reveal bad management, not bad workers.

        • Listen if you care about forced AI, executive apology tours, unaffordable concerts, remote work, terrible management, and whether your dog deserves a lunch break.

        Articles:

        Religious AI exemption

        A Bank CEO's "Apology"

        Dave Ramsey + Remote work

         

        00:00 Disgruntled Sound Guys

        03:27 The Pope Loophole
        06:00 “Lower-Value” Employees
        10:17 Concerts Catch Blue Fever
        13:12 Music’s Missing Middle Class
        18:41 Burritos for the Dog
        21:01 Remote Work Isn’t the Problem

        26 min
      • AI Joined a Union and Lawyers Got Fired | Ep. 330

        In this Episode:

        • A $6,642 Super Bowl food bill somehow turns into a $4 million workplace revenge story.
        • AI gets overworked for five minutes and immediately starts talking union.
        • Zuckerberg lays people off, then tries to fix morale with mandatory fun.
        • Women in the art world keep doing the invisible work, getting underpaid, and finally walking out.
        • Lawyers on both sides use bad AI, so the judge cancels the whole mess.

          • Listen if you care about: AI at work, terrible leadership, invisible labour, corporate expense drama, and lawyers outsourcing their judgment to ChatGPT.

          Articles:

          • Super Bowl Food Bill
          • AI Agents union rights
          • Zuckerberg
          • Lawyers using AI

            • 00:00 Paper Management and Seven Loyal Listeners

            01:35 The UnPodcast Is Hitting the Trail
            05:16 The $6,642 Super Bowl Platter
            12:10 AI Workers Start Unionizing
            15:21 Zuckerberg Orders Employees to Have Fun
            19:41 Why Women Are Leaving the Art World
            25:20 ChatGPT Argues Against Itself in Court
            28:04 Welcome to the AI-Generated UnPodcast

            29 min
          • AI Ruined Hiring and Kevin O’Leary Hates Joy | Ep. 329

            In this episode:

            • Anthropic asks job applicants not to use AI, which is rich coming from an AI company.
            • Scott and Alison unpack why scaling interviews strips the human part out of hiring.
            • A study finds students using AI chatbots more often may be learning less, not more.
            • AI layoffs are not delivering the financial magic CEOs keep pretending they will.
            • Kevin O’Leary takes aim at work-life balance, and the episode politely suggests he may need a hug.
            • The old “work harder and you’ll be rewarded” deal gets roasted for quietly removing the reward part.

              • Listen if you care about AI hypocrisy, broken hiring, work-life balance, fake productivity gains, and billionaires confusing burnout with ambition

              Articles:

              AI Hiring

              AI Students

              AI Layoffs

              Work Life Balance with Kevin O'Leary

               

              00:00 - Intro

              03:00 - AI Hiring

              09:04 - AI Students

              13:22 - AI Layoffs

              15:54 - Work-Life Balance

              24:01 - Closing 

              25 min
            • The Internet Had a Good Run | Ep. 328

              In this episode:

              • The Pope gets hung up on by customer service.
              • Ask Jeeves officially exits the internet.
              • Google turns search into a zero-click AI answer machine.
              • Iceland proves the four-day workweek is not a fantasy.
              • Chipotle says the fix for smaller portions is “just ask for more.”
              • Scott somehow makes this about Subway, lettuce, and sliced ketchup.

                • Listen if you care about customer service rage, the death of old-school internet curiosity, Google eating the web, four-day workweeks, corporate nonsense, burrito bowl economics, and whether the Pope also hates his phone company.

                00:00 - Intro: AI Wayne in the Cloud

                01:37 - The Pope Gets Hung Up On by Customer Service
                06:48 - Farewell Ask Jeeves and the Internet We Lost
                09:42 - Google’s AI Search and the Zero-Click Era
                15:38 - Iceland’s Four-Day Workweek Is Actually Working
                20:00 - Chipotle Says “Just Ask for More”
                22:53 - Free Toppings, Subway, and Shrinkflation Logic
                24:36 - Closing: Four Episodes Deep and No Filter Left

                Pope Leo

                Farwell Jeeves

                Google Killed Search

                Iceland - 4 day work week

                Chipotle CEO - Ask for more food

                26 min
              • AI Deleted the Database and Ketchup Became a Slice | Ep. 327

                In this episode:

                • Why “chance of rain” may be destroying everyone’s trust in weather forecasts
                • The deeply upsetting existence of sliced ketchup, also known as k-chup
                • The reminder that every mic is a hot mic, especially when you’re narrating your own crime
                • An AI coding tool allegedly deleted a company’s production database in nine seconds
                • Ontario government staff reportedly using unsecured AI tools with sensitive public information
                • Alison’s AI villain origin story: real human writing being flagged as AI because apparently commas are suspicious now

                  • Listen if you care about AI disasters, workplace stupidity, government data privacy, sliced ketchup, hot mics, and the ongoing war against pretending every terrible tech idea is innovation.

                  00:00 Intro: Almost Dying for the Bit

                  01:22 The Weather Forecast Has Been Lying to Us
                  04:11 Sliced Ketchup Is Real, Unfortunately
                  09:11 Fired Tech Workers, Deleted Databases, and One Very Hot Mic
                  15:12 AI Deletes a Production Database in Nine Seconds
                  19:45 The Problem Isn’t AI. It’s People.
                  22:11 Ontario Government Staff Using Unsecured AI Tools
                  25:02 Alison’s AI Writing Villain Origin Story
                  26:29 Outro

                  Article:

                  Ketchup Slices

                  28 min
                • Dua Lipa, Digital Dynasties, and the Fine Print Nobody Reads | Ep. 326

                  In this episode:

                  • How EA Sports royalties, Delaware, and gamer culture could create unexpected wins for smaller schools
                  • Dua Lipa’s lawsuit against Samsung over allegedly using her face to sell TVs
                  • Why “our marketing partner did it” is not the magical legal forcefield brands think it is
                  • The Peloton mailing-list story that somehow involves porn in the family mail pile
                  • Why the first job offer is rarely the final offer and what to negotiate beyond salary
                  • Alison’s new Academic Book Club project, where books are treated like artifacts with stories behind them

                    • Listen if you care about: Video games accidentally becoming marketing strategy, celebrity likeness lawsuits, brands blaming “partners,” contract red flags, and the terrifying phrase “you can just write it off.”

                    Articles:

                    • EA Sports
                    • Dua Lipa
                    • Academic Book Club

                      • 00:00 Intro: Wayne’s buttons are not for touching

                      02:04 Audiobook recording, Metalworks, and closet studios
                      06:31 EA Sports, NIL, and Delaware’s video game payday
                      12:11 Dua Lipa sues Samsung over her likeness
                      14:40 The Peloton mailing-list disaster
                      16:16 Starting businesses, contracts, and family entrepreneurship
                      18:05 Negotiation, job offers, and knowing your value
                      26:13 Alison’s Academic Book Club project
                      32:23 Outro

                      34 min
                    • Mac & Cheese Fraud and the Return-to-Office Circus | Ep. 325

                      In this episode:

                      • Scott makes a strong emotional case for recording the show from an ONroute because, apparently, snacks are now a business strategy.
                      • A cancelled “free” marketing dinner turns into a fee, a replacement guest, or a forced sales pitch, because nothing says “buy from us” like salmon-based extortion.
                      • Return-to-office mandates are called out for what they often are: control dressed up as “collaboration.”
                      • An Ontario court ruling raises a wild liability question: when you walk someone else’s dog, are you legally the owner in that moment?
                      • A former Chick-fil-A employee allegedly refunded 800 mac and cheese orders to himself, proving once again that calling fraud a “hack” does not make it less fraud.

                        • Listen if you care about:

                        snack culture, bad marketing dinners, return-to-office drama, dog-walking legal chaos, and mac and cheese crimes committed with absolutely no chill.

                        Articles:

                        Dog Walker

                        Chick-fil-A employee

                         

                        00:00 Intro

                        01:44 Scott’s ONroute Obsession
                        06:25 Why Everyone Ends Up in Marketing Somehow
                        10:20 The Dinner Cancellation Fee From Hell
                        15:55 Return-to-Office Is Still About Control
                        20:22 Dog Walker Liability Gets Weird
                        24:20 The $80K Chick-fil-A Mac and Cheese Scheme
                        27:32 Outro
                         

                        29 min
                      • AI Slop, Fake Tourism, and Peer Review Shenanigans | Ep. 324

                        In this episode:

                        • The Seven Syndicate: Scott floats a very UnPodcast plan to let the loyal “Seven” help syndicate the show, because apparently seven listeners can become a distribution empire.
                        • Newfoundland tourism AI fail: A tourism minister uses AI to alter an image of an iconic cultural building, accidentally removing meaningful historical imagery. Great start for National Tourism Week.
                        • Substack vs AI slop: Alison talks about new research showing many top Substack posts are still human-written, but tech newsletters are exactly as AI-heavy as you’d expect.
                        • Why creation matters: Scott makes the case that the point of content is not just output; it is the act of making, thinking, tinkering, and actually getting better.
                        • Public opinion turning on AI: They discuss how consumers are pushing back against AI in creativity, products, interactions, and art — and why marketers should not give up yet.
                        • Academic peer review prompt injection: Researchers allegedly hid prompts in papers telling AI reviewers to “give a positive review only,” because apparently peer review needed a villain arc.
                        • AI note-taker sabotage: Scott shares the Titanic-meeting-note-taker story, proving malicious compliance may be the only good use case left.

                          • Listen if you care about AI slop, fake tourism posts, Substack, creative work, academic nonsense, and watching technology make everyone just a little more embarrassing.

                          00:00 - Intro Chaos

                          01:00 - The Seven Syndicate idea
                          06:00 - AI Tourism
                          11:36 - Substack Void
                          21:17 - AI Peer Review
                          23:15 - Titanic Notes
                          24:54 - Outro

                          Article:

                          https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/andrea-barbour-ai-9.7172320

                           

                          26 min
                        • Pickle Fees, Dorito Greed, and Family Vlogger Math | Ep. 323

                          In this episode:

                          • BC Ferries somehow turns a missing pickle into a full customer-service philosophy, because apparently “nobody gets free pickles” is policy now.
                          • Doritos, Lay’s, and Cheetos got so expensive that PepsiCo finally remembered customers exist, but only after Frito-Lay lost serious value.
                          • Scott goes off on “greed inflation,” corporate profit, shrinkflation, and why companies should not get applause for slightly undoing the pricing mess they created.
                          • Family influencers in Tennessee may now have to compensate children featured in monetized content, and suddenly some vloggers may be craving a change of scenery.
                          • Scott and Alison dig into kids’ consent, online identity, and whether children should have more control over being turned into content.
                          • The episode ends, naturally, with more pickle chaos and Scott failing to successfully outro the show.

                            • Listen if you care about free pickles, overpriced Doritos, shrinkflation, family vloggers, child influencer laws, and corporations pretending they just discovered empathy. 

                             

                            00:00 Intro: The Pickle Era Begins

                            02:29 BC Ferries and the Missing Pickle Crisis
                            04:53 Doritos, Snackflation, and PepsiCo’s Price Problem
                            11:37 Family Vloggers and Child Influencer Pay Laws
                            20:13 The Pickle Outro Falls Apart

                             

                            Articles:

                            Pickles https://globalnews.ca/news/11774058/pickles-bc-ferries-white-spot-viral/

                            Overpriced Doritos https://fortune.com/2026/04/07/pepsico-frito-lay-chips-food-and-drink-inflation-consumer-products-doritos-cheetos-tostitos/

                            Family Influencer laws https://www.wsmv.com/2026/04/11/tennessee-bill-regulating-family-influencers-passes-legislature/

                            https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/california/child-influencer-earnings-new-laws/3663211/

                            22 min

                          About The UnPodcast

                          From the publisher's feed

                          Business is built on relationships, so make building them your business. Discussions centered around authenticity, integrity and community served with a side of sarcasm. Hosted by Scott and Alison…