The Deep End by ODF

Ben Kuhn is the CTO at Wave, a mobile payment company whose mission is to make Africa the first cashless continent by building ways for unbanked people to send and save money.Our discussion today covers a wide variety of topics — everything from how going cashless can help lift people out of poverty in sub-saharan Africa, to how social enterprises differ from tech companies. to why soccer balls don’t make good lamps. We also spend time diving deep on why startups should only spend their “innovation points” on things that directly impact the core business problem they’re trying to solve and use “boring” solutions for other things. Ben’s mental model for this is fascinating — the way he sees it, departures from the status quo are almost always more costly than people realize, and so it’s only worth doing when it’s mission critical.Hosted by Marshall Kosloff and produced by Jackson Steger

Alex Kantrowitz is a reporter who contributes to CNBC, hosts the "Big Technology" Podcast and writes the "Big Technology" newsletter, which includes reports & analysis of big tech firms like Amazon, Google, Microsoft Apple, and more. Alex is an independent reporter with a background working at media orgs like BuzzFeed. He's optimistic about the impact of tech on the world. As such - he occupies a unique vantage point as a member of both tech AND media (two groups that don't always get along). Our conversation explores this dynamic by diving into how the relationship between tech and media evolved over time and resurfacing some of the more overlooked reasons why media coverage of tech has soured. We also explore the state of tech media today in a world when many companies are attempting to tell their own stories, and why it's harder to do this than most companies realize. We also discuss the business of content creation. Alex is a big advocate of building quality relationships with audiences.   He also questions the conventional wisdom of advertising being an inherently evil revenue model. Alex is a multifaceted person so we covered a lot of ground - Elon buying twitter, the state of the market, how Twitter destroyed Vine, and more. It's a great birds eye view episode for those looking to learn more about tech and media today. Hosted by Marshall Kosloff and produced by Jackson Steger

Our discussion today centers on the “market for solutions”, a mental model that guest Charles Cushing explored in a 2020 essay he wrote where he wondered if there was a way to improve the market for solutions in order to make all downstream problems easier to solve.In Charles' view, On Deck’s mission is to help improve the market for solutions by bringing together capital, talent, and customers all into one place to make company formation happen.We get into the evolution and history of On Deck’s Founder fellowship through its different phases and iterations, and how On Deck became the place to go for founders to develop conviction, find co-founders, and validate their idea. We also get a look into some future offerings including “belief checks” for talented people who are pre-conviction that will help would-be founders get off the sidelines and into the arena starting companies.Hosted by Marshall Kosloff and produced by Jackson Steger

Anand Chandrasekaran is a partner at General Catalyst with extensive executive experience at some of the biggest names in tech, including Five9, Facebook, and Yahoo. He has also started several of his own companies. Today’s episode is about the startup ecosystem in India, where Anand has invested in dozens of up-and-comers. We discuss first the phase-by-phase evolution of India’s startup ecosystem, followed by how users today have a different Internet starting point than those from 5 and 10 years ago, as well as what the Indian startup ecosystem can teach the world. We also touch on how web3 levels the playing field. You can read Anand’s thoughts in more detail @ anandc on Twitter. Hosted by Marshall Kosloff and produced by Jackson Steger

This week's guests are Ian Cinnamon and Lucas Bagno. Ian and Lucas are the co-hosts of Village Global’s new Solarpunk podcast, which focuses on space, technology, and defense. The theme of the conversation today is Solarpunk. It was interesting that, although they say they’re inspired by the aesthetic of Solarpunk, Ian and Lucas emphasize that they have their own interpretation of what Solarpunk means that isn’t tied to the online Solarpunk community. Instead, for them, it’s about technology as a force for progress and human thriving over the long term. Beyond the definition of Solarpunk, we discuss a wide range of topics including how there is more capital and talent flowing into space tech today than before, why time is short for defense innovation and we need to act now to address a changing geopolitical situation, why the CCP represents one of the biggest threats that America has ever faced, and why Lucas considers Anduril to be the most inspiring company name of all time.  Our discussion today is an intriguing mashup of disparate topics like space, defense tech, and ideas that matter the most for a better, more secure, and more sustainable future for humanity. Hosted by Marshall Kosloff and produced by Jackson Steger

This week's guest is Eli Dourado, an economist who says that all he wants is for GDP per capita to reach $200k in 2050. Marshall's conversation with Eli today centers around how to get economic growth back on track after the Great Stagnation, which was a slowdown of total factor productivity growth from 2% annually in the post WW2 period to .3% by 2005. We discuss the causes of economic stagnation and the way to get to faster growth, including genuine hard tech advances like the MRNA vaccines or faster air travel. We also talk about why institutional and regulatory changes — what Eli calls “social technologies” — are just as necessary as pure technological innovation. It’s a far-ranging discussion that covers everything from the details of what led to the mothballing of the Concorde project, to how it might be possible one day to travel to the other side of the earth on your lunch break. We also discuss why the “promiscuous distribution of veto powers” have slowed our ability to make decisions as a society, crippling our ability to innovate and achieve our economic growth potential as a result. Hosted by Marshall Kosloff and produced by Jackson Steger 

Today's guest is "Default Friend," an internet personality who writes about internet culture and digital communities.  Our discussion starts by using the recent Taylor Lorenz controversy regarding her story on Libs of TikTok to launch into a broader discussion of how the internet and tech are reported on, and why there’s a one-dimensional focus on fear mongering or trend analysis in media coverage of internet culture and digital communities.  We then broaden our conversation to the different eras of the internet and its evolution through time, including the cultural effects of digital communities migrating from one platform to the next, the reversal of the sex-positive movement online, and why big tech vs. crypto vs. luddites may soon replace the culture wars.  It’s a fascinating glimpse into the past and the future of the internet which highlights the increasing convergence between the internet and “real life”.  Hosted by Marshall Kosloff and produced by Jackson Steger

Fred Stutzman is founder and CEO of Freedom - a company developing a toolset for the future of focused work in a distraction-first world. Our discussion is about what the future of work will look like in a world where the things that enable remote collaboration, like Slack and email, are the very things which make it hardest to focus. We talk about fighting the negative externalities of social media with tools like Freedom, which blocks distracting websites and apps across your devices. We talk about how social media creates time displacement and how good work hygiene, creating guardrails, and pre-committing to take advantage of your best intentions can be used to create a better working environment. The conversation also gets into why high quality work is more mentally taxing in an era of what Fred calls “distraction machines," how knowledge work resembles an endurance sport, and how the next generation entering the labor force will relate to the technologies they use to work. It’s a sobering but eye-opening reminder of the perpetual battle for focus that defines modern work. Hosted by Marshall Kosloff and produced by Jackson Steger

 Rachel Sanders is co-founder and CEO at Rootine, a company focused on optimizing health and performance through precision nutrition.Rootine is focused on what they call precision health and nutrition, which involves looking at hundreds of data points to identify your nutritional deficiencies and sending you tailored supplements to optimize your health, along with a way to track if it's working. Our discussion focuses on why there’s no one-size-fits all solution to health and wellness, what cellular nutrition means and how it supports overall health, and what the future of health will look like now that consumers have access to more data than ever before. This conversation was especially energizing because it offers us a window into the way that tech-enabled health and nutrition is likely to progress over the next ten years: a future that is more data-driven, precise for every individual, and incorporating tight feedback loops to determine what really works and what doesn’t. Hosted by Marshall Kosloff and produced by Jackson Steger

Julien Smith is co-founder and CEO at Practice. He's also a bestselling author  and executive coach. Today’s discussion focuses on Julien’s journey from starting as an online author and creator and then turning into a multi-time startup founder, instead of vice versa. We discuss what it takes to make the leap from talking about something to actually doing it, how publishing has changed and why it remains the same, the evolution and trajectory of the executive coaching industry from Tony Robbins’ era until today, and how to avoid the pressures of shifting from small business clients to enterprise clients over time. The episode also touches on some interesting ground around the growth of executive coaching and the self-improvement industry, and how founders can now learn from each other directly in peer-to-peer networks more now than ever before. Hosted by Marshall Kosloff and produced by Jackson Steger