The Times Tech Podcast

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on John de Souza, to talk about replacing car batteries, not charging them (6:20), starting with fleets (11:30), growing up in Africa and Dubai (15:00), producing a movie (19:00), entering uni at 16 (22:10), selling his first startup to Bill Gates (24:05), becoming an investor (27:40), then doing a few more startups (32:25), alighting on EV charging (33:40), getting the car companies to buy in to swappable batteries (39:20), raising $260 million (42:40), why superchargers aren’t enough (44:35), the future of the energy transition (48:20), and his deal with Uber (50:40). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday  Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Harley Finkelstein, president of Shopify, to talk about the market mayhem (3:50), Shopify coming out of the shadows (5:25), how it got started (11:30), how Amazon have up on the online stores business (19:35), getting into delivery (22:45), the renewed Amazon threat (27:45), the future of direct-to-consumer commerce (31:30), how Apple has upended online ads (36:10), and the best and worst of going fully remote (38:30). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Kentaro Kawamori to talk about starting out in the oil industry (3:30), growing up all around the world (8:00), doing esports (10:00), going to three universities at once (13:30), dealing with drunken Japanese salarymen (14:40), the need for carbon accounting (17:30), how Persefoni works (24:15), Big Oil billionaires backing climate tech (27:15), raising $100 million (29:00), what happens after measurement (32:30), why Exxon’s loss to green investors was a big deal (34:30), the SEC pushing through with climate disclosure rules (38:10), and his worst day of work (41:50). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on two guests this week. First up is Steven Levy, editor-at-large at Wired and author Facebook: The Inside Story, to talk about Sheryl Sandberg’s original “deal” with Mark Zuckerberg (5:00), what Facebook was in the early days (7:10), the failure of the Zuck-Sheryl partnership (9:30), consolidation of Zuckerberg’s power (19:00), the Washington DC operation (21:00), what Sandberg does next (26:30), and what Meta does next (31:20). Then Chris Sheldrick, co-founder and CEO of What3words, comes on to talk about dividing the world into 57 trillion squares (36:30), the origin of the idea (38:40), getting the world to sign up (42:00), partnering with Jaguar Land Rover (44:10), breaking into America and other markets (46:50), the battle for mapping dominance (50:15), the business model (54:20), translating the system into different languages (55:50), and getting its first contract - in Mongolia (57:40) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Anne Boden, founder of fintech unicorn Starling Bank, to talk about the post-pandemic workplace (3:30), the market collapse (8:40), starting a bank after the recession (11:50), growing up in South Wales (14:25), why banks aren’t good at tech (17:45), how people reacted to her as a first-time, 50-something entrepreneur (22:00), the first “yes” after 400 “no’s” (25:00), the banks’ lack of confidence (30:00), getting to 3 million customers in three years (33:40), sexism (39:40), breaking out of being a “trial bank” (42:20), crypto (43:40), and money laundering in London (46:25). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.