Big Technology Podcast

Michael Sayman was 16 years old when Facebook recruited him to join the company. The overture arrived as he was sitting in math class, and the teacher promptly took away his iPad. Sayman joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss why and how Facebook builds products for kids and teens (something he has intimate knowledge of) and the reasons why it won't stop. You can find Sayman's new book, App Kid,...

Wired senior writer Lauren Goode was on hand this week as Amazon introduced Astro, a home robot, and a Ring home-monitoring drone. Goode joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss her reaction to the products. And in the second half, stay tuned for a discussion of how Apple and Amazon are on a collision course even though they build products very differently.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

Max Chafkin is the author of The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power, which debuts this week. The book is a fascinating, inside look into the life and rise of Silicon Valley’s most powerful and controversial venture capitalist. In this interview, we discuss whether Thiel is representative of Silicon Valley or an anomaly, and dig into who he really is and what motivates hi...

Jeff Horwitz is the Wall Street Journal reporter who unearthed a trove of internal Facebook documents that reveal a damning disconnect between what the company says in public and its actions inside. Brian Boland is a former Facebook executive who spent more than 11 years inside the company. The two come on to discuss Horowitz's bombshell series of reports, unpacking what they tell us about Faceboo...

Erin Griffith is the New York Times reporter at the trial for Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. She joins Big Technology Podcast to bring us inside the courtroom, explaining why Holmes is on trial and whether she'll be a rare founder to face consequences for misleading investors. We also discuss whether Holmes is emblematic of the venture capital world's downsides, or an outlier. You can find Eri...

Zack O'Malley Greenburg is a music journalist who's spent time with everyone from Katy Perry to Kanye West. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss how the music industry seems to go through every major technology-driven shift before everyone else, including the decline of brick-and-mortar retail (see: Tower Records), to the rise of streaming content (Spotify), and even NFTs (WuTang's Once Upon...

Jonathan Knee is a professor at Columbia Business School and senior advisor at the investment bank Evercore. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss The Platform Delusion, his forthcoming book about how the term "platform" has become overused to the point that it has little meaning. Is Sweetgreen really a platform. Well, Sweetgreen thinks so (c'mon now). Listen for a discussion covering what sh...

Nir Eyal is the bestselling author of Hooked and Indistractable. He joins Big Technology Podcast for a spirited debate over whether we're actually addicted to our phones, the ethics of app developers who use tricks to keep us coming back, and what to do about it. You can find Nir's books here:  http://geni.us/Indistractable and http://geni.us/hooked Here's an Indistractable summary article: https:...

Scott Heiferman is the founder of Meetup, a website that connects people online and gets them to meet each other offline. Heiferman joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss whether the internet can still bring people together vs. tear them apart, the latter of which it's done plenty of recently. This wide-ranging conversation gets into people's declining faith in institutions, our friendships and l...

Sheera Frenkel is a New York Times reporter and author of the best-selling book, An Ugly Truth. She joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss her hit book and her reporting process. We address critics's claims that Facebook reporters are harsh to the company because they’re mad Trump won, and they’re also upset that social media is eroding their gatekeeping power. Frenkel listens to these critiques...

Shelly Banjo is Bloomberg's New York Bureau Chief. She's also the host of Foundering, a podcast mini-series that documents TikTok's rise. Banjo joins Big Technology Podcast for a conversation about how TikTok's massive global reach creates serious data security risks and also opens up rival countries to influence operations from the Chinese government. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megap...

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr wants to provide internet access to the people in Cuba so they can document and share the abuses of their government without censorship. Commissioner Carr, who rose to his rank after initially serving as an FCC intern, joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss his plan, how the technology would work, and the ethics and advisability of accelerating regime change by provi...

Eliot Brown And Maureen Farrell are the authors of The Cult of We: WeWork and the Great Start-Up Delusion. The new book digs into the rise and fall of Adam Neumann's WeWork. And though it's the story of one company, it's really a lens through which you can see all the markets' irrationality. The authors join for a macro discussion of the factors that led WeWork — a real estate company — to become...

Chris Best is the CEO of Substack, an email newsletter platform that lets writers send newsletters and charge subscribers a monthly fee. The platform — which I use for my Big Technology newsletter — is squarely in the middle of the battle over online speech, looked at by some as an alternative that will displace professional media. Best joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss his company's positio...

“Are you trying to fucking destroy the company?” That’s what Bill Gates told Microsoft board member Maria Klawe when she asked why Microsoft wouldn’t consider a single women out of 50 candidates it was evaluating to replace then-CEO Steve Ballmer. When Microsoft settled on Satya Nadella, he later joined Klawe at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women In Computing and told her that instead of asking...

Jim Lanzone is the CEO of Tinder. He took over the world’s most popular dating app last summer, in the heart of the pandemic, and is starting to evolve its product to give people new ways to connect. Lanzone joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss how Gen Z wants to date online, how their behavior differs from millennials, and how that factors into his product vision. We also talk about the busine...

Adam Kovacevich is the CEO of the Big Tech-funded Chamber of Progress. The former Google policy executive joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss the origins of his organization and why Big Tech would rather fund him vs. stick their own necks out. Tune in for a revealing conversation of what happens behind the scenes in Big Tech's battle against regulation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

Marshall Kosloff and Saagar Enjeti host The Realignment, an excellent podcast about politics and tech in our fast-changing world. I joined the show his week to talk about the new set of bills in Congress aimed at Big Tech and asked them if we could air the show here on the Big Technology feed as well. Graciously, they agreed! So this week, we'll run this episode as a bonus on a Tuesday, and then w...

Andrew Ross Sorkin is the co-anchor of Squawk Box on CNBC, founder and editor of Dealbook at the New York Times, and the author of Too Big To Fail. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss the wild state of the market, the rise of meme stocks, the promise and drawbacks of bitcoin, SPACs, Big Tech antitrust, Elon Musk, and when the party will come to an end. Tune in for a wide-ranging interview a...

Andrew Callaghan is the force behind All Gas No Breaks, a hit YouTube show that featured Callaghan putting a mic in front of people and just... letting them talk. Callaghan's recently gone independent, taking his unique interviewing style to a new home, Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan, and building a substantial following there. Callaghan joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss why his alternative...

You've heard this story before: Two Stanford kids take on a big bad industry, one that harms people, and they disrupt it. Typically, these stories are portrayed as heroic in Silicon Valley. Yet the story of Juul is different. The company sells sleek e-cigarettes packed with nicotine to cigarette smokers looking for a less harmful solution. But flush with VC cash and determined to grow, the company...

Jack Nicas joins Big Technology Podcast fresh out of the Epic v. Apple trial, where the Fortnight maker is suing Apple over the 30% cut it takes out of every dollar we spend on apps downloaded from the App Store. Nicas takes us inside the courtroom, explains what’s at stake, and makes a prediction for where things net out. In the second half, Nicas breaks down his reporting on Apple’s questionable...

Professor Scott Galloway swings by to discuss how our economy can at once feel rigged yet loaded with opportunity. Galloway describes a “tilted” system that makes life difficult for young people and wage workers while lifting up assets like stock and equity and helping older generations. We talk not only about the problems, but the solutions for the system and the individuals within it. As usual,...

Brad Stone is the author of Amazon Unbound, a new book about the inner workings of Amazon, which releases this week. Stone joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss the book, Bezos's transformation, Amazon's culture, and what's in store for the company now that Bezos is leaving the CEO role. Check out our sponsor, Flatfile: https://flatfile.io Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adc...

Sridhar Ramaswamy is CEO of Neeva, an ads-free search engine he helped found after running Google's ads and commerce business. Ramaswamy spent seventeen years inside Google, and eventually grew disillusioned with its business. Now he's trying to create the solution with $77.5 million in funding. In this conversation, we discuss his evolving view on advertising, what decoupling search from ads allo...