Techonomics

In our 39th episode, we welcome Andre Nader, a semi-retired professional in tech turned author of the FAANG FIRE Substack. Andre shares his journey from working at Meta for nearly a decade to his transition into semi-retirement in May 2023. He discusses how he's living off savings accumulated from a tech career within the context of the FIRE (Financial Independent, Retire Early) movement. Andre ex...

Join us for an insightful conversation with Parsa and Alejandro, co-founders of Evress Analytics, as they discuss their journey from tutoring marketplace founders to education analytics innovators. Learn how they're revolutionizing K-12 education by helping school districts make data-driven decisions using AI to maximize the impact of their educational programs. If you'd like to get in touch with...

Modern Financial Planning in Tech with Mike Troxell In this episode, financial planner Mike Troxell, founder of Modern Financial Planning, joins hosts Jake and Arun to discuss financial planning with a focus on tech professionals. They dive into recent economic events, the challenges tech workers face, managing sudden wealth, and the importance of tax planning. Mike also shares insights on balanci...

CrowdStruck: CrowdStrike Outage Analysis & Lessons in Reliability In this episode, Arun and Jake analyze the recent CrowdStrike outage that affected millions of devices and critical industries worldwide. They discuss the technical reasons behind the incident, including configuration update issues with the Falcon sensor's content interpreter, the potential lapses in testing procedures, and...

In this episode, Whitman Kwok, founder and CEO of KAV , joins Arun and I to discuss the revolutionary work his company is doing in the helmet industry. Whitman takes us through his diverse career path leading to the founding of KAV, emphasizing the importance of grit and persistence. He highlights the technical aspects and mission of producing highly customizable, stylish, and safe bike helmets. T...

Our 5th and last episode of Techonomics Season 3 features Ben Gibbs, CEO and co-founder of READY Robotics ⁠ . In this episode we dive into the future of robotics, why there's a need for a common language across robotics manufacturers, and how READY Robotics is making that a reality.

Our 4th episode of Techonomics Season 3 features Jack Greco, co-founder and general partner of Far Out Ventures . In this episode we dive into Jack's incredible story of how he became one of the premier pre-seed and seed investors in Buffalo, NY, and why he's investing so much in companies outside the typical startup ecosystem in San Francisco.

Episode 3 of Techonomics Season 3 deep dives into investing in next generation software tools with Abstraction.vc founder, Taylor Clauson. The episode is packed with insights for anyone interested in tech, venture capital, or developer tools. Taylor shares his advice for aspiring founders, his thoughts on the future of developer tools, and his perspective on the Kansas City tech scene.

Techonomics Season 3 continues this week with a special episode deep-diving into Arun 's personal experience with Silicon Valley Bank's collapse and it's impact on his startup Model-Prime , and our usual banter on the topic. Find out what it's like to be in the middle of a prisoner's dilemma banking collapse as a founder. Do you keep your funds in SVB or get your funds to make...

Steven Kotler is a New York Times bestselling author, an award-winning journalist, a flow researcher, and the Executive Director of the Flow Research Collective who joined us for our 30th episode (and start of Techonomics Season 3) to discuss his new book, Gnar Country: Growing Old, Staying Rad . Steven has numerous other books like The Rise of Superman , The Art of the Impossible , and Stealing F...

In this episode, Arun and I went sans guest to dive into the recent market decline, impact on the Tech market, layoffs, and a special look-back at our previous episodes of the season.

In our 28th publication of the Techonomics podcast, Arun and I had the pleasure of speaking with Lindsay Gordon , the founder of A Life of Options and a career coach for analytically minded people. She also happens to be a newly minted author with her book, Right for YOU . Lindsay's specialty in coaching and tips/tricks in the episode are a perfect fit for Techonomics listeners – the analytically...

Andrew Yates from Promoted.ai joins us for our 27th episode to discuss ad tech, his thoughts on SaaS value creation, and how he and the team at Promoted.ai are optimizing marketplaces. Promoted.ai helps companies like Hipcamp use their own data to provide the most relevant content using ad-like ranking and scoring. We also had a great time going over Andrew's history in ad tech, his experience bui...

In this episode, Nate Pierotti from New Stack Ventures joined Arun and I to discuss New Stack's approach to Venture Capital, investing in a time without tech exuberance, and what it's like to be a founder turned VC. This episode gets to the heart of Techonomics – a conversation at the intersection of tech and the economy.

Mike Wagner , the CEO of Edge Case Research , joined Arun and I in our 25th episode of Techonomics to discuss the different levels of self-driving, insurance, the liability shift as we move towards autonomous vehicles, and the processes self-driving car companies like Waymo , Cruise , and Aurora can use to make them safe.

In our 24th episode, Arun and I sat down with Chirru Gopal , Co-founder and VP of Engineering at Mitra Chem , a startup that's accelerating lab-to-market timeline for battery materials. Chirru is a good friend and an expert in the field of material science, engineering, and batteries – something we don't cover in any previous episode. During the show Chirru gives us a crash course in batteries whi...

In our 23rd episode, Arun and I sat down with Jake Panikulam , the CEO of Main Street Autonomy – a company that creates localization, mapping, and calibration software for robotics companies. Music: Hipjazz and Dreams from Bensound.com

This week we have the pleasure of talking with Michelle Parsons , the Chief Product Officer of Hinge – the dating app designed to be deleted. In this episode, we talk about dating in the COVID era, how Hinge's product thinking helps their users get quality dates, and how the thread of community has been shaping software products throughout the tech industry. Music: Hipjazz and Dreams from Bensound...

For our second episode of season two, Nitya Sharma joined us to talk Payments, India, and Online Khata -- introducing us to Simpl . Simpl is a company reimagining the credit card from the ground up and empowering online retailers to build trusted relationships with their best customers. See more at https://getsimpl.com and https://www.techonomics.news Music: Hipjazz and Dreams from Bensound.com

For our first episode of season two, Tyler Odean (or Knifefight as his internet pseudonym goes) joined us to talk Bitcoin, NFTs, and what makes good money. Tyler is the creator and author of the crypto newsletter Something Interesting at https://www.somethinginteresting.news which features easy-to-understand commentary on current happenings and the fundamentals in the crypto market. As the tagline...

In our 19th episode, Arun and I sat down with Ahmed Siddiqui , VP of product at Branch and author of the book The Anatomy of the Swipe . We dove into Ahmed's entry into the payments industry, why he wrote a book, his company, Branch, and payment concepts. If you're looking for a crash course in payments, particularly what happens when you swipe, tap, or insert your credit card, look no further. We...

Professor Campbell Harvey is a Professor of Economics at Duke University and author of the book DeFi and the Future of Finance . Follow along as we dig into Professor Campbell's background, the story of his thesis on the inverted yield curve, his new book, and the concepts of cryptocurrency and decentralized finance (DeFi). Music: Hipjazz and Dreams from Bensound.com

Jeff Birkeland is the VP of Product of Consumer Experience at Headspace , and has built his career and expertise around the combination of product and content. He's been a Director of Product Management at Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo, and a few startups, and his love for content started when he was producing documentaries at PBS and HBO. Listen in on this episode where Jeff walks Arun and me through...

Rahul Iyer leads engineering for Stripe's Terminal product . He also previously led production platform engineering at Airbnb, managed multiple engineering teams at Facebook, and has had stints at other startups in between. In our 16th episode, Rahul sat down with Arun and me to talk about his journey in engineering, a recent history of building software at companies like Facebook, and his thought...

Ivan Kirigin is the founder of the Venture Capital firm Tango that specializes in Machine Learning and Robotics. Ivan sat down with Arun and me to talk about venture capital, what it's like going through Y Combinator as a previous founder, his vision of the future of technology, and how Tango is doing things differently to fund companies that are improving the world. Music: Hipjazz and Dreams from...