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The Times Tech Podcast

Latest episodes

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Jul 19, 2024 • 51min

Conservation X Labs’ Alex Deghan: “Why go to Mars? it’s a failed version of earth”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Alex Deghan, founder of Conservation X Labs, to talk about avoiding the sixth mass extinction (3:00), getting near a tipping point in the Amazon (11:40), raising money from tech billionaires (14:40), growing up in northern Idaho (17:50), almost dying from malaria (20:00), rebuilding science in Iraq (23:30), close calls (30:40), setting up the first national park in Afghanistan (33:10), optimism (39:15), air conditioning (42:15), and building their own products (47:10). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Jul 12, 2024 • 34min

UC Berkeley’s Hany Farid: “AI is a misinformation amplifier”

The Sunday Times tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Hany Farid, a digital forensic professor, to talk about launching a cybersecurity startup called Get Real Labs (3:00), the growing capability of AI to create totally believable images (6:45), and video (9:00), the Slovakia election example (12:00), the end of shared truth (15:30), why we might learn the lessons from social media regulation failures (20:50), how AI could make things far worse, pre and post election in America (23:45), and how he managed to start a company while also being a university professor (27:00). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Jul 6, 2024 • 1h 15min

Deep Sky’s Fred Lalonde - Holiday replay!

Happy July 4th! Running back one of our favorite episodes from last summer - Fred Lalonde of Deep Sky, who speaks eloquently about the need to bury every ton of CO2 emitted since the Industrial Revolution. Enjoy! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Jun 28, 2024 • 34min

PagerDuty's Jennifer Tejada: "Going public is the wedding, staying public is the marriage"

When a website goes down, companies lose an average of $500,000 per minute. The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Jennifer Tejada, chief executive of PagerDuty, a company founded to keep that from happening (2:45). She talks about growing up in a small town (8:00), using supercomputers in the 1990’s to sell consumer products (12:30), coming to the West Coast via Australia (14:00), working around the world (16:30), operating as an outsider (18:15), defending DEI (21:00), the crossover of pro sports and tech (25:00), and going public (28:30). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Jun 21, 2024 • 47min

Limbic’s Ross Harper: “AI won’t replace doctors, it will enhance them”

The world is aflutter with talk of "AI doctors". A UK company has actually built one. The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Dr Ross Harper, co founder and chief executive of Limbic to talk about creating a clinical AI chatbot (4:30), how it works (6:40), starting out four years ago 13:40), getting in with 40% of mental health care providers in Britain (17:40), being certified as a medical device (22:40), targeting America (24:40), studying computational neuroscience (27:00), starting the company (33:40), the future of AI in medicine (38:00), and the comparison to self-driving vehicles (41:15).  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Jun 14, 2024 • 55min

Galvanize's Tom Steyer: "We're winning the climate fight"

Former presidential candidate Tom Steyer talks about the progress in the climate fight, beating Big Oil, and the possibility of the oil industry transforming. He discusses why doomerism doesn't work, the argument for climate being won, and his journey before dedicating his career to climate.
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Jun 8, 2024 • 59min

X Prize's Peter Diamandis: "Talking to your dog and extending life"

Do you want to talk to your whales? Monkeys? Your dog? AI will make it possible. The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Peter Diamandis to talk about why he set up an $111m longevity prize (2:30), using AI to prevent death from “something stupid” (8:30), growing up in the Bronx (11:50), falling in love with space exploration (14:00), launching the X Prize (19:50), doing 30 of them in 30 years (26:30), his approach to AI innovation (29:15), speaking to animals (30:00), the power of a prize (33:00), why its hard to get the mega-rich to fund ideas (39:30), optimism (44:50), climate change (47:00), the future of longevity (51:00), and bitcoin (57:00).  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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May 31, 2024 • 45min

Renaissance's Tom Kalil: "Transforming philanthropy"

There are about 1,200 billionaires in Europe and America. Why don't they do more good with their money? This week's guest reckons he can get them to do just that. The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Tom Kalil, founder of Renaissance Philanthropy, to talk about why he created the organisation (4:15), nationalism (8:00), the problem with the current philanthropy model (11:15), leveraging tech and science (16:40), his background in Washington DC and the White House (22:20), working for Eric Schmidt (31:20), taking big swings (33:45), and the changing nature of giving (38:00), Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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May 24, 2024 • 49min

Tortus' Dom Pimenta: "AI is the answer to NHS doctor burnout"

AI will save the NHS - but not the wya you think. The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Dom Pimenta, a cardiologist and co-founder of Tortus, to talk about the potential of its artificial intelligence interface (AI) for doctors (5:00), preventing burnout (11:00), naming the tool OSLER (18:30), how it works (20:45), why he became a doctor (26:00), founding a charity during Covid (29:15), quitting the NHS (32:45), getting Khosla Ventures to invest (35:35), trying to get the product into market (40:00), and AI's potential in medicine (45:00). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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May 17, 2024 • 58min

Gigascale's Mike Schroepfer: "From building Meta to investing in climate"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on MIke Schroepfer, Meta’s former CTO, to talk about why he left Meta (3:00), growing up working his parents’ radio station (9:00), going to Stanford (12:00), getting into tech startups (14:15), the dotcom boom (17:15), going to Mozilla (21:15), joining Facebook when MySpace was bigger (23:00), Mark Zuckerberg (26:30), lessons from scaling to a giant company (31:40), the climate opportunity (35:10), focussing on hardware (39:40), using his money (43:30), the talent influx (44:40), the AI moment (47:30), and his climate tech predictions (51:05) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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