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The Times Tech Podcast

Latest episodes

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Nov 22, 2019 • 53min

Lily.ai’s Purva Gupta: “Why do these shorts make me sad?”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Purva Gupta, founder of Lily.ai, to talk about algorithms of emotion (5:40), creating psychographic profiles of shoppers (7:45), drawing on 15,000 data points to predict what people want (10:45), bring brands out of the dark ages (12:45), starting her company (14:45), testing her idea (17:45), having no technical background (20:15), having six different visas (23:00), using numbers to replicate emotions (24:15), her plan to access new data sources (26:15), why social media data is not that attractive (30:55), building an immunity to rejection (32:35), almost giving up (35:15), founder dating (37:25), and breaking up (41:25), her moment of inspiration (43:30), and why she won’t work for some companies (47:30). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Nov 15, 2019 • 43min

Humm’s Iain McIntyre and Tim Fiori: “A brain-enhancement subscription”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Iain McIntyre and Tim Fiori of Humm to talk about creating brain prosthetics, starting out in Australia (3:20), turning a room-sized machine into a band-aid (7:10), improving working memory (8:45), and what that means (11:25), the miniaturisation process (13:40), my own brain test (14:35), tuning the brain’s orchestra (17:55), the business plan (21:20), targeting old people (23:20), marketing it as a wellness product (24:40), bifurcating the human race (27:35), why someone else isn’t doing this (31:20), compounding interest in your brain (35:05), why others have failed (36:40), and a better brain subscription (38:30).  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Nov 8, 2019 • 38min

Stratechery's Ben Thompson: "Apple's App Store is textbook anti-competitive"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Ben Thompson, the tech commentator behind Stratechery, to talk about the antitrust issues stalking Big Tech (2:50), why Google is most vulnerable (4:40), convenience versus abuse (9:35), why Facebook’s antitrust case is much less clear (10:40), why Instagram was so clearly a step too far (15:20), the consumer harm problem (17:50), Amazon as a niche player (19:00), why the App Store is a clear cut case of monopoly (21:20), Apple’s self-appointed role as the guardian of privacy (24:35), why Silicon Valley is branching into new industries (27:10), is regulation too late or even important (29:00), why Big Tech is big (32:20), and the future of the gig economy (34:25). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Nov 8, 2019 • 50min

Microsoft's Brad Smith: "Orwell's 1984 was a warning"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson bring on Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, to talk about suing the government (3:00), working at Microsoft for a quarter of a century (5:00), how battling the government changed the company’s approach (7:00), whether Silicon Valley will do the same (9:40), calling for a cultural revolution (11:40), being careful about who they sell their tech to (14:30), the rising demands of tech employees (19:00), why this time is different with artificial intelligence (21:200), the new age of anxiety (29:10), the culture of tech (31:35), how Silicon Valley is like the Galapagos (34:10), how it is changing (36:00), the primacy of data centres (37:30), how tech companies are like banks (40:55), and data privacy as a human right (44:30). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Nov 2, 2019 • 52min

Atari's Nolan Bushnell: "I started tinkering in third grade and never stopped"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, to talk about growing up in Utah (0:45), setting up his first business at age 10 (3:00), managing the games department (4:20), coming to Silicon Valley (7:10), working at Ampex (8:30), playing Space War (9:30), starting a gaming company with $500 (12:30), creating Pong (16:20), running on a shoestring (19:15), selling to Warner (23:30), the Atari culture (24:40), hiring Steve Jobs (27:00), making more than all of Hollywood combined (32:00), turning down an offer to be the first investor in Apple (34:40), his worst day of work (38:15), why the tech industry took root in Silicon Valley (39:00), why he’s excited about tech in 2019 (41:00), his other ventures (45:20), what Steve Jobs got right (48:25). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Nov 1, 2019 • 46min

Ben Horowitz: "Jeff Bezos should be more like Genghis Khan”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, to talk about company culture (2:15), the Amazon example (7:), what’s wrong with new Uber (9:45), Uber’s old culture (12:15), Silicon Valley’s moment (15:55), how culture can be a company-killer (20:00), on whether capitalism is changing (25:15), why there aren’t more outsiders in venture capital (31:15), seeing what you don’t have (37:1), how lack of diversity creates product problems (39:55), and seeing culture early (43:05). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Oct 25, 2019 • 1h 3min

Stuart Russell: “When machines become smarter than us, there will be no 'reset' button”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on artificial intelligence expert Stuart Russell to talk about AI’s King Midas problem (3:00), dismissiveness about general AI (8:00), and why we are not close to developing it (13:10), the future of work (16:20), happiness engineering (21:00), humanity’s last invention (25:30), slaughter-bots (31:05), whether he is an optimist (37:40), how we can control something more powerful than us (39:30), conscious machines (45:30), the social media experiment (48:30), writing minimally-invasive algorithms (53:40), the brain-computer interface (55:30), and how we can save ourselves (59:50) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Oct 25, 2019 • 43min

Lilium's Daniel Wiegand: "Flying hairdryers"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Daniel Wiegand, founder of Lilium, to talk about how he got hooked on the idea of air taxis (3:00), being a first-time founder (4:20), reimagining the hair dryer (6:20), building the first prototype (8:30), why science is his friend (11:10), starting with pilots (13:05), why silence is golden (15:20), how Lilium plans to launch its own air taxi service (17:50), being as cheap as ride-hailing (21:00), why cities are interested (23:20), learning on the job (24:05), what China wants (27:00), what the world looks like in 2039 (29:35), why he doesn’t just want to be a manufacturer (31:40), looking at Africa (35:50), why batteries are critical (36:35), his worst day of work (38:10), and why the air taxi boom is happening now (40:20). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Oct 18, 2019 • 42min

Prellis Biologics’ Melanie Matheu: “Lab-grown kidneys"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Merlanie Matheu, founder of Prellis Biologics, to talk about 3D-printing organs (2:15), cellular scaffolding (3:35), implanting lab-grown tumours in rats (5:15), why this is a big deal (6:35), solving the kidney (7:55), the magic of 3D printing (12:00), how she got into tissue engineering (13:45), filing a patent before knowing she could pull off the technology (18:10), the sector’s hype cycle (19:45), the future of organ printing (22:35), printing blood vessels first (25:20), why it was hard to raise money (29:35), getting regulatory approval (31:00), her worst day of work (35:00), creating the world’s first laser-based bio-printer (37:10), and where she gets the cells (40:05).  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Oct 16, 2019 • 2min

We're back! Season 4 launch

The Sunday Times’s tech correspondent Danny Fortson is back with a new season of interviews with the most intriguing personalities in tech. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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