The Times Tech Podcast

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Matt Hall, founder of Larva Labs, to talk about creating cryptopunks (3:00), what he did before this (4:30), creating cryptopunks in 2017 (9:00), cryptokitties (11:00), how it works (12:45), giving them away (14:00), from zero to a $250m market (15:15), why NFTs took off (20:05), who is buying them (24:20), trying 50 other things before this (25:45), Autoglyphs (27:00) and what’s next (29:25). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Yishan Wong, founder of Terraformation, to talk about his plan to plant a trillion trees (3:30), his days running Reddit (8:10), on whether social media is manageable (10:50), working at Paypal and Facebook in the early days (13:15), marrying tech and tree planting (15:15), how he got into climate change (18:00), making tree-planting a business (23:15), the first project (28:20), the reforestation bottleneck (33:20), why solar is key (36:05), raising venture capital (44:00), selling forest “kits” (47:30), banking on a shift in thought (52:10), his lessons from scaling Facebook (57:45), why trees are the easiest answer (1:02:15), and why the goal is 1 trillion (1:04:50).PLUS: Gianni Settino on why he joined an investor group that spent $208,000 on a Lebron James video highlight (1:06:40), tinkering with ethereum (1:08:50), cryptokitties (1:11:45), building a crypto football card experience (1:15:40), NBA Top Shot (1:16:30), buying the Lebron James card (1:19:00), what his parents said (1:22:00), and whether this is a bubble (1:25:15).Get The Times and The Sunday Times for a BIG discount by clicking here: times.co.uk/dannyinthevalley Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Nikil Viswanathan, co-founder of Alchemy, to talk about the boom in non-fungible tokens (NFT’s) (3:00), his first app (7:50), what Alchemy does (10:10), how much NFT sales have grown since January (14:00), fads and staying power (17:30), the value of digital goods (20:20), the weirdest NFTs (23:30), the future (25:15), how Alchemy makes money (30:30), growing up in small-town Texas (34:00), Stanford (35:15), his worst day (36:35), and his investors (40:00). PLUS: Raj Choudhury, of Harvard Business School, comes on to talk about the return to work (42:00), the 25% model (44:20), engineering random interactions (48:40), getting senior people to buy in (51:30), the problem with our “meeting culture” (54:10), the financial benefits of “work from anywhere” (58:30), recreating the office (1:00:45), and reversing the rural brain drain (1:01:15).Get The Times and The Sunday Times for a BIG discount by clicking here: times.co.uk/dannyinthevalley Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Tim O’Reilly to talk about the end of Silicon Valley as we know it (3:30), how the markets were designed to give us monopolies (6:30), his history in tech (90), incentives (10:30), the coming crash (17:00), the tech industry’s changing culture (23:15), how venture investors now pick the winners (26:15), on whether Silicon Valley can do deep tech (29:15), the antitrust backlash (38:20), how the industry is moving away from its ideals (38:35), how that tax code powers the bubble (40:55), and the next opportunities (45:00).Get The Times and The Sunday Times for a BIG discount by clicking here: times.co.uk/dannyinthevalley Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Pat Romano, chief executive of Chargepoint, to talk about taking a company public in a pandemic (4:20), the electric car revolution (7:30), about whether there are enough chargers (11:40), why charging cars will be completely different from filling up at a petrol station (11:20), how long before we think of EV’s as just cars (16:50), the lack of standards (18:00), going to the market via SPAC (20:15), the rush of electric car companies to the market (23:15), and investor interest (25:50), the race between electric cars and the infrastructure they will require (34:00), subsidies (34:35), how he makes money (37:55), and how the world changed in 10 years (40:30).Click here for Pat Romano's first interview more than two years ago:https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/chargepoints-pat-romano-hiding-in-plain-sight/id1233991021?i=1000425353783Get The Times and The Sunday Times for a BIG discount by clicking here: times.co.uk/dannyinthevalley Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Timnit Gebru, former co-head of Google’s ethical AI research team, to talk about how she arrived at Google (3:30), starting Black in AI (5:30), why diversity matters (8:40), her work at Google (12:30), gender shades research (15:50), the paper that got her booted from Google (19:10), large language models (20:50), what her paper addressed (27:30), why AI matters (30:15), the danger of undermining independent research (33:15), her co-founder getting fired (35:40), getting harassed online (37:20), and the tension between corporations and academia (39:00). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Kulveer Taggar, founder of Zeus Living, to talk about a year like no other (2:50), the first wave of cancellations 6:230), choosing to give money back (10:10), getting blanked by investors (11:40), his “Jerry Maguire” moment (14:15), Zoom layoffs (16:00), regaining ground (20:10), his co-founder’s wife getting cancer (23:10), getting back to growth (30:20), the hotel industry (34:15), changing how he works (36:30), and hearing from ex-employees (42:40). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Varsha Rao, chief executive of Nurx, to talk about running a women’s health company in Covid (2:50), seeing demand double (6:40), the staying power of telehealth (8:50), doing a startup in the first dotcom boom (13:35), what she learned (16:35), being a female founder (18:20), joining as an early executive at Airbnb (20;50), shifting to healthcare (25:30), starting at Nurx at a difficult time (27:55), launching migraine and acne treatments (31:30), convincing insurance companies to pay (33:10), what’s changed since the first bubble (36:40), and her best and worst days (38:05). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Delian Asparouhov, founder of Varda Industries, to talk about manufacturing in space (3:00), the collapse in launch costs (6:45), SpaceX’s Starship (8:55), coming to America from Bulgaria (11:30), the math Olympiad (12:20), his previous tech jobs (14:55), founder dating (17:45), building space factories (24:20), the ‘coming down’ challenge (26:05), setting a 2-year timeline (29:20), the pitch to investors (30:50), what else can be made in microgravity (34:05), and what you can do in two days in space (41:20).Get The Times free for a month: https://app.times.radio/dannyinthevalley Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Jason Calacanis, to talk about the de-platfroming of Trump (4:45), the revelation that is Trump-less Twitter (9:15), Silicon Valley v the media (12:15), the editing process (17:30), his term “late-stage journalism” (19:50), subscriptions and popularity (23:25), the direction of journalism (28:00), the increased scrutiny of Big Tech (30:30), free agent journalists (34:15), Twitter v Clubhouse (36:30), and Robinhood (41:45).Get The Times free for a month: https://app.times.radio/dannyinthevalley Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.