The Times Tech Podcast cover image

The Times Tech Podcast

Latest episodes

undefined
Nov 9, 2018 • 38min

Five Questions with... Louis Hyman

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Louis Hyman, Cornell University professor and author of the book Temp, to answer five big about the present and future of work in the age of automation: 1. Is technological progress bad for workers? (2:45). 2. How does reality differ from the myth of automation? (7:00), 3. Is the corporation dead? (14:30), 4. Are unions also going extinct? (25:10), and 5. What does history tell us about the future of work? (28:35). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
undefined
Nov 2, 2018 • 44min

Index Ventures' Danny Rimer and Jan Hammer: "Quinoa-bots and sneaker heads"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Index Ventures’ Danny Rimer and Jan Hammer to scooters (3:05), flying cars (6:), self-driving cars (7:00), why Deliveroo will stay independent (9:15), the future of insurance (10:30), changing the approach to data privacy (15:20), robo-restaurants (19:00), the rise of "mass-scale artisanal" brands (20:40), getting inside the minds of young people (24:10), how Softbank is changing the Valley (26:45), how money is changing the tech landscape (29:30), is the end of cash nigh (34:45), and the problem of Silicon Valley's monoculture (39:20), Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
undefined
Oct 26, 2018 • 26min

89up's Mike Harris: "Hiding in plain sight"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Mike Harris, founder of 89up, to talk about his work uncovering Russia’s election meddling in Brexit (2:25), the importance of Facebook groups in spreading misinformation (4:10), making an enemy of Russia (7:00), the government’s impending ‘fake news’ report (8:10), the “Mainstream Network” (9:20), Facebook’s complicity in anonymity (14:15), the problem with the master algorithm (17:30), how to fix it (19:45), and the business of chaos (22:35) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
undefined
Oct 26, 2018 • 44min

Mick Batyske: "DJing is like angel investing"

The Sunday Times tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Mick Batyske, to talk about becoming Big Tech’s chosen DJ (4:30), paying his way through grad school (5:30), moving to New York (8:05), bidding goodbye to “Mick Boogie” (9:10) rebranding (11:10), DJing Andreessen Horowitz’s annual barbecue (14:30), the intersection of technology and culture (17:00), doing parties for Lebron James and Jay Z (20:10), breaking into tech (24:05), growing a Silicon Valley network (25:30), becoming an investor (29:30), playing to techie crowds (33:00) the marriage of culture and tech (36:30) delving into e-sports (38:10) how music consumption has changed (39:50), and how deejaying taught him how to “pivot” (41:10). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
undefined
Oct 19, 2018 • 52min

Naveen Jain: "Moon babies and optional illness"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on tech tycoon Naveen Jain to talk about solving bigproblems (2:30), turning the moon into the “eighth continent” with his company Moon Express (6:25), getting approval for interplanetary travel (8:10), the new space race and moon (10:15), modifying humans to live in space (12:30), why we should bother (15:00), spending $50m to get to a moon launch (17:00), how outer space is like the Internet (18:30), the first baby born on the moon (21:50), making illness “optional” (22:45), the universe of universes in our guts (24:45), faecal matter transplants (27:15), poop by post (29:00), how spinach is toxic for many people (31:10), how chronic disease is a subscription business (33:00), growing up poor (37:30), food as personalised medicine (39:50), why we need to relax before we eat (42:20), starting out as an intern on $3 per hour (44:20), why expertise is useless (45:45), what lesson you can learn from X-Prize (47:15), the death of scarcity (48:30), and how individuals are solving problems once left to nation-states (50:30). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
undefined
Oct 12, 2018 • 44min

Longevity Fund’s Laura Deming: “Age is a disease”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Laura Deming, a 24-year-old longevity investor to talk about young scientists (3:05), the goal of the Longevity Fund (4:30), her incubator Age 1 (5:55), starting out as a 11-year-old (7:00), skipping school (10:00), getting funded by Peter Thiel (11:40), raising a venture capital fund as a teenager (13:15), targeting ageing through specific diseases (15:00), her goal (16:20), trying to become superhuman (18:45), “de-ageing” beetles (21:00), whether we should actually try to defeat ageing (23:00), how a little money can go a long way (25:10), who has invested in her fund (27:25), the key scientific advancements (28:35), the effects we’ll start to see first from this revolution (32:30), turning off menopause (34:45), the next step in our evolution (38:50), and winning over the sceptics (40:45). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
undefined
Oct 5, 2018 • 44min

Former Google PR chief Jessica Powell: "Light-sabre aerobics"

TheThe Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Jessica Powell, former Google communications chief, to talk about her new satire of Silicon Valley, The Big Disruption (2:35), how at her old job she called a hookup site a “meeting platform” (5:55), when noone was interested in a Silicon Valley satire (8:00), the lack of nuance in the industry’s perception (9:20), the growing number of critics (12:40), problem of the tech industry’s ‘sameness’ (14:30), how living in London made her look differently at the industry (20:45), the great oatmeal revolt (24:30), what made her leave and publish the book (26:00), the risk in criticising her own industry (29:55), the most urgent changes required (31:40), the value of diversity (34:15), how free speech is vaunted but devalued (37:25), and her most quintessential Silicon Valley moment (40:40). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
undefined
Oct 4, 2018 • 43min

Lambda School's Austen Allred: "Go to university - if you can pay for it in cash"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Austen Allred, founder of Lambda School, to talk about how he moved to Silicon Valley and lived in his car (2:50), getting his first job (5:05), his first failed startup (6:05), trying to kill payday loans (9:05), landing on his current startup idea of offering free university in exchange for a cut of students’ income (9:50), the education problem (11:50), going to Y Combinator (113:50), expanding the model into other industries (15:00), soaring university costs (17:35), the reasons behind it (21:30), why education has been overlooked as a target for disruption (23:00), the cultural role of university (24:25), how he chooses students (27:45), how universities have responded (29:35), raising venture capital (31:10), the importance of Twitter as a marketing tool (31:40), betting all of his money on Tesla (34:40), finding professors for his school (38:05), and his plans to offer free room and board as well (39:35). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
undefined
Sep 28, 2018 • 59min

Five Questions with... Amazon's former chief scientist Andreas Weigend

The Sunday Times' tech correspondent Danny Fortson takes a "Monks to Metallica" tour of the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco before sitting down with Andreas Weigend, Amazon's first chief scientist, to cover five big questions: 1. Is china's social credit score a glimpse of the future? (12:30), 2. Is privacy dead? (24:55), 3. Is the concept of data being used for rather than against every people a realistic prospect? (33:45), 4. What does Amazon do that other's don't that makes it so successful? (38:00), 5. Does the rise of AI signal an epochal shift for humanity, or is this just another false dawn? (47:15). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
undefined
Sep 21, 2018 • 32min

Babylon Health's Ali Parsa: "A doctor in your pocket"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Ali Parsa, founder of Babylon Health, to talk about ending healthcare as we know it (4:00), doing to medicine what Google did to information (5:45), using artificial intelligence to diagnose patients (7:20), overcoming the trust issue (9:10), the problem with humans (11:30), the complete automation of healthcare (14:05), the challenge of pushing technology into hospitals (17:30), the limitations of remote care (22:40), the half of the world with no access to medicine (24:30), how Babylon’s AI does a consultation every few seconds (25:45), and the hurdles that stand in the way of AI-powered medicine (27:05). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Get the Snipd
podcast app

Unlock the knowledge in podcasts with the podcast player of the future.
App store bannerPlay store banner

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode

Save any
moment

Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways

Share
& Export

Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode