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The Times Tech Podcast

Latest episodes

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May 27, 2022 • 47min

Arrival's Avinash Rugoobur: "No one has ever made vehicles this way"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Avinash Rugoobur, president of Arrival, to talk about the challenge of creating an electric vehicle company from scratch (3:30), micro-factories (6:20), how the EV shift has already happened (10:30), why small is beautiful (15:50), the problem with paint (19:50), starting at GM’s innovation unit (24:20), when he started a “chocolate lounge” (25:45), meeting Arrival founder Denis Sverdlov (30:10), the importance of mentors (35:10), what keeps him up at night (38:30), and operating in a bear market (42:00). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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May 20, 2022 • 34min

Miss Excel's Kat Norton: "How I made millions doing Tiktok videos - about Microsoft Excel”

The Sunday Times' tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Kat Norton, creator of Miss Excel, to talk about what she did before Miss Excel (3:30), declaring she would be “rich and famous” (7:30), deciding to try Tiktok (9:50), hitting 100,000 views with an early video (11:50), creating an Instagram presence (13:55), quitting her job (15:30), webinars (17:10), going from zero to seven figures in a year (19:00), on whether the pace is sustainable (24:10), social media negativity (27:10), the new world of Excel creators (28:45), and leaving New York (31:20). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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May 13, 2022 • 45min

Mitra Chem's Vivas Kumar: "Building a US battery champion"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Vivas Kumar, founder of Mitra Chem, to talk about batteries (4:00), starting out at Tesla (8:10), launching his company (9:50), the race for battery resources (12:40), iron and China (14:00), meeting Chamath Palihapitya (18:10), going from India to Singapore to Texas to California (21:40), the Tesla roller coaster (26:30), making cathode powder (34:15), and the million-mile battery (39:30). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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May 6, 2022 • 1h 8min

UC Berkeley’s Hany Farid and James Currier of NFX on Musk’s Twitter takeover and the state of social media

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on two guests, Hany Farid of UC Berkeley’s School of Information, and James Currier, general partner at NFX, to talk about Twitter and social media. Farid is up first to talk about free speech (4:50), the ideal of the Internet (10:00), the content moderation challenge (14:45), Musk’s plan for Twitter (18:50), why Farid’s optimistic (23:00), the cost of misinformation (27:00), and his prediction for Twitter (30:30). NFX’s James Currier then comes on to talk about the state of social media (33:35), taming the savageness of man (40:40), the bot problem (42:35), the uniqueness of Twitter (44:35), the Tiktok effect (46:50), the rise and fall of consumer products (51:55), the return to social media normalcy (54:25), the value of a social graph and Twitter’s future (57:45), and the crash in tech markets (1:02:10). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Apr 29, 2022 • 51min

Spring Free EV's Sunil Paul: "I've been trying to give away this idea for 10 years"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Sunil Paul to talk about how the “orange day” inspired him to start Spring Free (4:00), pioneering car-sharing and ride-sharing (9:50), why his company Sidecar didn’t work (14:35), the idea behind Spring Free (17:35), the Airbnb of electric vehicles (21:50), finding enough cars (27:40), getting billionaires to back him (32:10), applying the lessons form ride-sharing (33:00), building Spring Free as a consumer fintech brand (38:40), comparing the climate opportunity to the dawn of the web and his early days at AOL (40:00), and his worst day (47:25). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Apr 22, 2022 • 49min

Second Life's Philip Rosedale: "Metaverse millionaires"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Philip Rosedale, founder of Second Life, to talk about why he has returned as an advisor and investing the virtual world years after having left (4:30), how many people are on Second Life today (10:05), the $650m Second Life economy (12:05), digital goods millionaires (14:20), the dangers of an ad-driven model (16:40), how you govern a metaverse with 1 billion people (24:40), moderating (28:30), the future of the metaverse (36:00), whether Mark Zuckerberg can pull it off (40:40), and the concept of race in virtual worlds (43:30). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Apr 15, 2022 • 38min

Bimble’s Francesca Howland and Julia Mallaby: “We launched a travel startup in Covid”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Francesca Howland and Julia Mallaby, co-founders of Bimble, to talk about what they did before launching their travel startup (3:50), when they decided to team up (8:10), starting a company mid-career (10:20), raising money (15:05), launching the app (18:35), their worst day (19:40), setting up their tech team in Ukraine (22:20), building up a social network (28:35), coming up with the name (32:15), and influencer marketing (33:00). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Apr 8, 2022 • 44min

Kraken's Jesse Powell: "Currencies have a finite life"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Jesse Powell, founder of crypto exchange Kraken, to talk about his first startup selling video game virtual goods (3:00), reading about bitcoin (9:40), why he thinks bitcoin will replace gold (12:00), launching Kraken (12:50), getting a banking license (15:00), selling tens of thousands of bitcoin (17:00), how widespread crypto actually is (20:40), the inherent weakness in the market (26:00), the Mt Gox bankruptcy (27:40), the impending failure of fiat currency (31:40), the power of the current system (34:35), raising just $20 million (36:00), and reaching the masses (40:00). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Apr 1, 2022 • 45min

Powerhouse's Emily Kirsch: “Investing in saving our species”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Emily Kirsch, founder of Powerhouse, to talk about starting the company in 2013 (2:50), launching a pilot venture capital fund (5:50), working as a community organiser and getting funding from Prince (7:00), taking lessons from her parents’ non-profit (10:00), starting in a bear market for green technology (13:20), the talent shift (16:45), getting big corporates to really change (20:00), why the software layer is important (24:30), choosing investors (31:05), creating a female-only firm (34:05), and the green investing wave (38:40). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Mar 25, 2022 • 36min

Aeromobil's Patrick Hessel: "This is a car that flies"

The Sunday Times' tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Patrick Hessel, chief executive of Aeromobil, to talk about the company's flying car (4:10), why he thinks the world needs it (9:00), the business model (12:00), fender benders (14:40), trying to raise money (16:10), who they are marketing to (19:25), going from investor to chief executive (25:00), the EVTOL boom (26:35), and what keeps him up at night (32:40). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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