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The Times Tech Podcast

Latest episodes

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Feb 5, 2021 • 41min

Shift4's Jared Isaacman: "Commanding the first civilian mission to space"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Jared Isaacman, founder of Shift4 Payments, to talk about flying the first civilian mission to space (4:15), on whether he is scared (7:00), starting a company at 16 (8:15), early success (11:15), creating the world’s largest air force (12:35), buying fighter jets around the world (16:05), training for space (17:50), funding kids cancer research (22:50), being a billionaire (24:25), the space flight (26:15), what his company is seeing amid Covid-19 (30:25), going public in a pandemic (32:00), giving away his money (33:15), flying Russian MiG fighter jets for fun (36:40), and breaking a round-the-world flying record (37:40). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Jan 29, 2021 • 36min

Cover’s Alexis Rivas: “Lego houses”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Alexis Rivas of Cover to talk about rebuilding home-building (3:45), starting small (7:40), using software to automate the process (9:00), the original idea (11:20), getting into Y Combinator (13:45), the Lego method (15:45), the mini-boom in construction tech (18:20), the homelessness problem (21:30), the cost difference (25:05), overhauling the industry (27:45), and his worst day of work (31:45).Get The Times free for a month: https://app.times.radio/dannyinthevalley Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Jan 22, 2021 • 58min

Economist Eli Dourado: "City lights on the moon and living past 130"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Eric Goldman, law professor at Santa Clara University, to talk about what tech regulation will look like under Joe Biden (4:00), Congressional gridlock (7:00), the importance of Section 230 (8:15), social media’s Lehman Brothers moment (10:25), cable news’ central role in disinformation (12:40), what he would do as tech czar (14:05), and the effectiveness of labelling posts (17:05). THEN: Utah State economist Eli Dourado comes on to talk about the biggest tech innovations of the next decade, like life extension (18:45), being a different kind of economist (24:00), the prize of increasing healthspan (26:10), turning back the clock (27:45), the Apple Watch replacing your doctor (30:15), when electric cars take over (32:20), machine learning enabling super human performance (36:10), why he focuses on innovation (39:50), why the future is in space (41:05), outer space manufacturing (45:50), glasses as the next frontier of computing (50:15), and the 1960’s as the golden age of productivity (53:20).Get The Times free for a month https://app.times.radio/dannyinthevalley Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Jan 15, 2021 • 53min

Neeva's Sridhar Ramaswamy: "We can do better than Google"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Sridhar Ramaswamy to talk about the problem with search engines (3:45), leaving Google (6:15), where Google went wrong (10:30), on whether people actually care about privacy (14:00), why the government's antitrust suit doesn’t help (19:00), how you build a search engine without the resources of Google (21:45), the importance of the cloud (25:45), the challenge of going from free to paid (28:30), how his former colleagues reacted (31:00), and what keeps him up at night (35:10). PLUS, Miami mayor Francis Suarez comes on to talk about Miami’s moment (35:45), that tweet (37:40), the Covid factor (39:00), why he thinks he’ll succeed his city can rival Austin as America's second tech hub (41:50), how low taxes help (44:30), and telling the story (50:00).  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Jan 8, 2021 • 1h 9min

Investing in US's Dmitri Mehlhorn: “The business of making Trump a one-term president”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Dmitri Mehlhorn, head of Investing in US, to talk about the business of unseating Trump (3:45), what he saw as an existential threat (8:25), linking up with Reid Hoffman (10:50), the problem he sought to solve (13:00), investing hundreds of millions to make Trump a one-term president (15:55), the importance of Big Data in politics (20:15), piloting a new approach in Virginia (22:30), upsetting the apple cart (25:40), being seen as “knife-fighters” (30:20), what happens now (33:40), good v evil (40:30), the key investments (43:20), the importance of the web (46:40), his biggest mistake (49:50), winning without becoming what you are trying to defeat (56:20), the death of truth (59:40), Silicon Valley’s conflict between backing Biden while battling against the impending antitrust crackdown (1:01:00), Zuckerberg’s major role in the election (1:04:30), and the future of media (1:07:15). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Dec 18, 2020 • 52min

Substack's Chris Best: "We knew we were walking into a firestorm”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Chris Best, founder of Substack, to talk about how he got started (6:40), newsletters v newspapers (11:20), Silicon Valley’s disgust with the media (13:10), helping writers make money (16:20), Substack’s top earner (22:00), the danger of hardening silos (25:40), giving writers more resources (30:55), the value of editors (34:10), how Substack makes money (38:25), following in Patreon’s footsteps (40:05), free versus paid (43:10), and his worst day of work (47:10). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Dec 11, 2020 • 56min

Compass Pathways' George Goldsmith: "Medical magic mushrooms"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on George Goldsmith to talk about how he started looking into psilocybin (3:45), its history of research (7:00), what he and his wife did before starting Compass (10:15), the 100 million people suffering treatment-resistant depression (14:15), launching the company (17:15), finding investors (18:45), being worth $800 million (23:00), what therapy looks like (26:20), patenting a natural substance (32:00), the legalisation movement (42:00), shooting for 2025 (44:30), his worst day of work (47:30), and building a business around an illegal drug (51:50). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Dec 4, 2020 • 47min

Tim O'Reilly: "The landlords of the Internet"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Tim O’Reilly, founder of O’Reilly Media and prominent tech commentator, to talk about algorithmic rent (0:00), the Facebook case (5:15), how tech companies quietly changed the terms of engagement (7:40), getting investment from Pierre Omidyar (12:40), how his work got started on algorithmic rent (13:20), monitoring Big Tech’s behaviour change (16:15), Facebook’s rents (23:35), the importance of framing a problem (26:00), how to protect our 'tenants’ rights' (29:40), building a case (36:00), getting inspiration from Microsoft (37:40), and the toxicity of the Big Tech debate (41:20). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Nov 27, 2020 • 37min

Ripple’s Brad Garlinghouse: “Replumbing the financial system”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Brad Garlinghouse, to talk about remaking the global financial system (2:45), when it could happen (5:30), the cross-border payment challenge (7:10), replumbing the system (12:00), going through the first dotcom bubble (14:20), suing Youtube (16:20), getting impersonated (21:40), China’s control of bitcoin (22:20), the future of finance (24:20), considering moving to London (29:00), operating with a hand behind his back (30:45), and how chaos helps (33:30). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Nov 20, 2020 • 45min

Stanford Internet Observatory’s Renee Diresta: “Sharpies, CIA supercomputers and human antennas”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Renee DiResta of the Stanford INternet Observatory to talk about how Twitter handled 2020 (3:30), mainstream media getting a pass (40), Facebook groups (9:45), Sharpiegate (8:30), the election day war room (11:45), conspiracy “tickets” (15:00), how conspiracies spread (16:45), Trump’s centrality to the voter fraud posts (21:40), how these theories play out in the real world (26:40), the low cost to spreading misinformation (28:45), how 2020 compares to 2016 (33:30), Covid vaccines as the next target (36:20), whats changed between the first tech hearing and the most recent (39:00), and what Tiktok learned (41:30).Get The Times free for a month: thetimes.co.uk/dannyinthevalley Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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