Behind The Tech with Kevin Scott

In this AMA episode of "Behind the Tech," Kevin Scott and Christina Warren address a variety of listener questions, ranging from the impact of AI on learning and personal projects to the future of software development and AI regulation. Kevin shares his experience using AI for personal projects, such as making Japanese tea bowls, and discusses how AI has changed the way he approaches both work and...

Michele Elam, the William Robertson Coe Professor of Humanities in the English Department at Stanford University and a Race and Technology Affiliate at the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, joins Behind the Tech to discuss her journey and work. Michele shares her unique path from a humanities background to engaging with technology and AI, influenced by her father's career as an...

As 2024 comes to an end, we take a look back at some of the biggest themes that emerged on Behind the Tech over this incredibly exciting year for tech and AI: creativity, education, and transformation. And we take a stroll through some of Kevin's obsessions – from ceramics to Maker YouTube to classical piano – alongside guests like Xyla Foxlin , Lisa Su, Ben Laude, Ethan Mollick, Refik Anadol , an...

Refik Anadol , an internationally renowned media artist and director, joins Behind the Tech to discuss his journey from a childhood fascination with computers in Istanbul to becoming a pioneer in the aesthetics of data and machine intelligence. In this episode, Refik shares his early inspirations—including his first encounter with a Commodore computer and the impact of science fiction on his imagi...

Ben Laude, a concert pianist and music educator, joins Behind the Tech to discuss his journey from a suburban childhood in Austin, Texas to becoming a world-renowned classical pianist and YouTube creator. Ben shares his early inspirations—including his father's dabbling in piano and his own private obsession with classical music that began in high school—and discusses the importance of having a go...

Sal Khan, founder and CEO of Khan Academy, joins Behind the Tech to discuss his journey from a curious child fascinated by science and technology to a global leader in education innovation. Sal shares his early inspirations that led him to pursue a career in engineering and a degree at MIT, and outlines his lifelong passion for education rooted in the belief that all students have the potential to...

Ethan Mollick is an associate professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches innovation and entrepreneurship. His research focuses on the impact of AI on work and education, and he has published numerous papers and a New York Times-bestselling book on AI, "Co-Intelligence." Ethan is also behind the popular Substack " One Useful Thing ," which explores the impli...

Mike Volpi is a longtime venture capitalist who joined Index Ventures in 2009 to establish the firm's San Francisco office and North American operations. Prior, he was Chief Strategy Officer at Cisco, overseeing a run of acquisitions still studied today as a model for technology merger strategy. Mike invests primarily in artificial intelligence, infrastructure, and open-source companies, and curre...

In 2023, after departing his role as CTO of Facebook, Mike Schroepfer launched the climate venture capital investment firm Gigascale Capital with the goal of building climate tech companies. Working alongside co-founders Victoria Beasley and Evaline Tsai, Gigascale's investments are today driving advancements in clean energy, biotech and computing. In this episode, Kevin and Mike discuss Mike's ea...

Xyl a Foxli n is an engineer and YouTuber with a passion for making things dating back to her early childhood love of art and creative exploration. What began as a way t o entertain herself with whatever materials she could find blossomed into a career as a content creator and maker, showcasin g her skills crafting every thi ng f rom a rocket to a sailboat. In this episode, Xyla and Kevin discuss...

As Chair and CEO of AMD, Lisa Su leads the transformation of the strategy and product execution of one of the fastest growing semiconductor companies in the world. She's the recipient of numerous awards, and a recent appointee to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. In this episode, she discusses her upbringing as the daughter of a mathematician, her early interest in eng...

As 2023 comes to an end, we take a look back at some of the year's most compelling, thought-provoking conversations with guests like Bill Gates, Neil deGrasse Tyson, OpenAI's Mira Murati, Shopify's Tobi Lutke, will.i.am, Sci-fi author Adrian Tchaikovsky, and many more. The year's programs featured a wide range of topics including equity in tech, advocating for science and, of course, the transform...

Helion is building the world's first fusion power plant, and co-founder and CEO David Kirtley is on a mission to improve access to clean energy for a better future. We're inspired by the work that they're doing—in fact, Microsoft recently announced that Helion is going to provide the company fusion power starting in 2028. In this episode, Kevin and David discuss David's early childhood and how he...

William A. Adams is a software engineer, DEI innovator, and philanthropist whose contributions to the field have been documented by the Computer History Museum. He spent more than 20 years at Microsoft, where he rolled out critical XML code globally, co-founded the  Leap  program , and served as Kevin's first technical advisor. In this episode, Kevin and William discuss how William got interested...

Kevin Roose is a technology columnist for  The New York Times  covering technology innovation, including AI. He's also the author of three books: his latest,  Futureproof,  is a "guide to surviving the technological future," including nine rules to help people more confidently navigate a machine-filled world. In this episode, Roose discusses how he developed an interest in technology at a young ag...

will.i.am is most well-known as the founder and lead member of the Black Eyed Peas. Simultaneously, he is also an entrepreneur and Founder & CEO of FYI.AI , a Web 3.0 AI messenger, where he spends a lot of his time investing in software and operating systems incorporating AI, natural language understanding, and voice computing. In this episode, Kevin and will.i.am discuss his upbringing and how he...

Mira Murati  is one of the most innovative  tech  leaders of our time. She has helped  to scale OpenAI to  the company it is today  and  lea d  teams to build  i nnovative  technologies  and products  including ChatGPT, DALL-E, and GPT-4 . In this episode, Kevin and Mira dis cuss how she  became  interes ted  in the sciences and technology, her innate  sense of curiosity which led her to a career...

Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of America's best-known astrophysicists and a huge advocate for the sciences and scientific thinking. Neil has a great talent for presenting complex concepts in a clear and accessible manner, a critical aspect of his role as an educator and director of the Hayden Planetarium. In this episode, Kevin talks with Neil about his interest in the sciences and innate curiosity,...

Adrian Tchaikovsky is an award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer and probably one of our favorite authors right now. He is best known for his series Shadows of the Apt and Children of Time. In this episode, Kevin talks with Adrian about his upbringing and how he got interested in science fiction, his unique storytelling abilities, and how current AI technology such as ChatGPT will impact ...

Today, we have a special guest joining us on the podcast—Bill Gates. With the rapidly evolving AI landscape, including the release of products like OpenAI's ChatGPT and the new Bing, it was the perfect time to have Bill join to talk about this unique moment in the history of computing. In this episode, Kevin talks with Bill about the latest in AI research, including the release of GPT-4, how past...

Empathy and emotions are at the center of how we connect and communicate as humans—in fact, 93 percent of how we communicate is accomplished through non-verbal means. Emotion AI (a subset of AI that measures, understands, simulates and reacts to human emotions) pioneer Rana el Kaliouby is on a mission to bring more emotional intelligence to the digital world. In this episode, Kevin talks with Rana...

Tobi Lütke, CEO and founder of the Canadian multinational e-commerce platform Shopify, is always looking for the tools he can use to build a better company. Since his early days running an online snowboard shop from his carport, Tobi has envisioned himself as fundamentally a craftsman first and a business exec second, a mindset that he has used to solve a wide variety of problems over the course o...

As 2022 winds down , we revisit some of t he year's most inspirational and fasc inating conversations with makers, engineers, award-winning sci - fi authors, and tech leaders —discussing topics ranging from building diversity into the ways we do work, to what the metaverse looks like now and far into the future, to imagin ing robots that know what you need before you do .  Kevin Scott   Behind the...

XKCD is one of our favorite webcomics - and it started out as doodles in Randall Munroe's college notebooks. Munroe describes his work as "a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language." In this episode, he joins Kevin to talk about how he got started, where his inspiration comes from and his latest book,  What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions.  Fi...

Have you ever wondered who was behind the creation of Google Docs? Kevin talks with Sam Schillace, one of the people who launched the transformational – and at the time controversial – idea 16 years ago. Today, Sam is an engineering Corporate VP focusing on consumer product culture and next generation productivity who stresses the importance of asking "What if?" questions. Kevin and Sam talk caree...