The Times Tech Podcast

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on David Barrett, founder of Expensify, to talk about competing for talent with unicorns (2:00), the odd reason for the company’s founding (5:15), creating a fictional expense-reporting startup (6:20), the deification of serial founders (10:30), why he promotes from within (14:15), the expenses industry (16:20),why he takes the whole company overseas every year (18:30), why he doesn’t like venture capitalists (25:40), buying out his investors (28:30), the stages of development (30:45), using a subscription model (32:00), why it took 12 years to get where they are (36:30), whether he wants to go public (38:15), the homelessness problem (41:30), the great rewards/points scam (43:45), his worst day of work (49:30), and the time when his employees got dengue fever (54:30). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, author of Shorter, to talk about why we work 40 hours per week (2:30), why he wrote the book (4:50), why working less is gaining traction (8:00), why working too much is like smoking (9:00), the difficulty instituting shorter work weeks (11:00), how it can be done (18:00), fighting against the gig economy (22:15), why big companies would ever want to do this (26:45), whether this is different between generations (29:35), the power of mothers (31:55), why rest is key (5:20), the culture of overwork (38:10), partnering with automation (42:30), and getting unstuck from the 40-hour week (45:30). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on George Whitesides, chief executive of Virgin Galactic, to talk about the new space race (3:00), doing more with less (4:15), rethinking space travel (6:45), moon hotels (8:15), democratising space (10:00), being an astronaut (12:15), why space travel is important (13:15), bringing the price down (17:30), avoiding disaster (18:30), governing who gets the lunar spoils (22:00), where space exploration sits in the history of humanity (25:00), and moving to the moon (27:20).  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 the Greek god of corporate housing (3:00), growing up in London (5:15), getting into Y Combinator (7:30), teaming up with Stripe founder Patrick Collison (10:40), becoming a millionaire at 24 (12:15), becoming a comedian (14:25), coming back to San Francisco to do Y Combinator again (18:00), why media coverage is not all it’s cracked up to be (23:40), pivoting to property management (26:40), how it works (31:00), why this is different from his other companies (33:15), the importance of location (36:25), his plan for life (39:50), living as a service (42:20), and his worst day (45:50). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Seth Bannon, founder of venture capital firm Fifty Years, to talk about targeting the truly big problems (1:00), why it took 18 months to raise $5m (2:40), targeting lab-grown meat (6:30), getting the met lobby on their side (8:30), backing birth control (12:00), taking left-field approaches to climate (13:50), taking advantage of the Silicon Valley cultural crisis (17:15), the need for big winners (21:00), the slow death of the Fridman doctrine (26:00), how he started out as a young idealist (28:30), (33:30), when he faked it but didn’t make it (38:20), confessing his sins (41:05), and his worst day of work (42:15).  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Dennis O’Malley, head of cannabis startup Caliva, to go from the buttoned-up corporate world to the weed industry (2:45), the ‘green rush’ (5:10), running a federally illegal business (7:50), the friction involved with buying weed products (13:00), their target market (14:40), raising $75m (16:30), charting a path toward legitimacy (20:00), partnering with Jay Z (22:30), trying to replace alcohol and pharma (29:10), not being able to advertise (34:15), the vaping crisis (38:35), whether it will ever go mainstream (40:30), the coming green crash (46:15), whether he needs black market expertise (48:15), his worst day of work (50:40), and whether filter bubbles help (55:20). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Vivienne Ming, a theoretical neuroscientist and founder of Socos Labs, dives into the ethics of artificial intelligence. She critiques ethics training, arguing that tools mirror their creators' biases. Discussing the impact of automation, she highlights how jobs are changing, emphasizing that universal basic income alone won’t replace the need for meaningful work. Ming also explores the necessity of teaching people to adapt and learn, proposing a tech-wise council to guide AI policy. Her personal journey shapes her views on empathy and the future of work.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Al Alcorn, video game pioneer and co-founder of Atari, to talk about when he first met co-founder Nolan Bushnell (2:30), breaking into a world dominated by pinball machines (6:30), making Pong (9:00), taking it to a bar (12:00), starting a manufacturing company (14:30), hiring hippies to work in a former roller rink (18:30), when copycats emerged (22:00), almost going bust (25:50), creating the first mass-market home console (28:45), striking a deal with Sears (30:30), building a company of young people (36:30), the hot tub announcement (40:10), why they sold to Warner (44:30), the culture clash (47:30), obsoleting their own products (52:00), hiring Steve Jobs (55:10), funding his trip to India (58:00), turning down Jobs’ offer to invest in Apple (1:00:00), and how Silicon Valley culture has changed (1:03:15) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Tom Harries, founder of Tulip, to talk about disrupting the cremation industry (0:30), starting with an obituary app (2:20), selling it and selling Tulip (3:45), what’s wrong with funerals (6:00), the fragmented death market (9:00), sending ashes through the post (11:45), cremating 10,000 people in two years (14:00), scaling from 5 to 95 people (17:40), hiring a professional chief executive then quickly selling (21:00), losing control of his baby (25:00), spreading the word online (28:30), the lows of starting a business (30:50), making mistakes (32:30), being a non-technical founder (34:20), why bring in a CEO went wrong (35:50), and raising $10 million (41:00). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Mary Lou Jepsen, founder of Openwater, to talk about how her near-death experience (3:05), and how it inspired her to start Openwater (5:50), developing a way to see inside our bodies (9:00) how it works (12:30), telepathy (19:45), the brain as the last bastion of privacy (24:20), the future of depression (26:40), the death of language (31:10), the brain as the final frontier (333:55), why she is so open about the issues this technology conjures (38:30), the problem with MRI’s (43:10), and why decoding the brain is inevitable (51:50). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.