The Times Tech Podcast

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Pat Romano, chief executive of Chargepoint, the world’s largest electric car charging company, to talk about the rise of the electric car (3:00), its genesis of the company 10 years ago (5:30), the importance of Elon Musk (11:20), California’s electric car policy as a model for the world (13:00), getting over charging's engineering hurdles (15:50), the end of the internal combustion engine (19:40), the cost of an (electric) fill-up (24:15), the problem with different plugs (28:55), the danger of an oil price drop (30:20), how self-driving technology will revolutionise transport (33:45), how to please the petrolheads (35:35), a dangerous and messy transition (37:40), how Chargepoint makes money (41:15), and the “fleetification” of cars (43:00).  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times' tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Tim Draper, co-founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, to answer five big questions. Question 1: Why does he hold $140m in bitcoin? (3:05), Question 2: Why he wants to split up California (12:40), Question 3: Why does he still believe in Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes (25:1), Question 4: What was his worst miss, biggest hit and weirdest pitch? (30:40), Question 5: Is money ruining Silicon Valley? (44:25). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Arvind Gupta, founder of IndeBio, to talk about why he founded his laboratory-venture capital hybrid (4:00), putting all the world’s knowledge into a test tube (4:30), the synthetic biology revolution (7:45), starting as an options trader (9:35), then moving to IDEO (11:00), how IndieBio works (13:00), base-jumping on the side (14:25), how jumping off buildings is like investing (16:30), why faster science means a revolution is coming (20:25), the future of food (22:15), designing super-humans (24:30), his bet to cure cancer (27:10), making bionic bees (28:40), creating a brain - computer interface for stroke victims (31:05), pes as guinea pigs for human therapies (33:10), finding companies (34:40), and what he is most excited about (36:00). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Ben Rubin and Sima Sistani, founders of video chat app Houseparty, to talk about trying and failing multiple times (3:00), why live streaming didn’t work (5:50), telling investors that their company was a bust - three months after raising $14m (8:50), focussing on the 99% (10:45), how Sima and Ben teamed up (14:15), building an alternative to “performative” social media (17:35), Sima’s background in banking (21:00), countering the loneliness epidemic (22:40), launching Houseparty (26:00), reengineering the app after it took off (29:30), raising $50m from Sequoia Capital (32:10), on everyone copying everyone in Silicon Valley (33:10), how Houseparty works (37:30), how both being immigrants influenced how they built the product (39:05), on not having a plan to make money (46:10), and their worst days of work (47:30). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.