Megashift - New Trends in Business

Megashift sits down with Jim Ray, developer relations lead at Blue Sky Social, to dig into what happens when social media is built on an open protocol instead of a closed platform. Jim breaks down the AT Protocol, how developers are already building everything from blogging tools to neighborhood apps on top of it, and why decentralization might be the antidote to a web increasingly shaped by AI an...

Megashift sits down with Sunny Israni, co-founder and CTO of Lightswitch, to talk about one of the biggest untapped opportunities in AI: the consumer packaged goods industry. While many in the tech world obsess over full autonomy, lots of food and beverage brands are still running on clipboards and manual processes. Sunny is building the agentic software to change that, and shares why the real opp...

Vicki Diez, Director of Brand Partnerships at Highsnobiety, joins Megashift to break down how brands earn real cultural relevance: not by chasing trends, but by investing in them. Vicki shares how Highsnobiety operates as a media publisher, brand, and agency all at once, and what it takes to help non-endemic brands like finance and tech companies show up authentically in culture. She also walks th...

Brian Douglas, co-founder of The Paper Compute Company and once GitHub's first developer advocate, joins Megashift to talk about the messy, exciting reality of AI agents in 2025. Brian breaks down what agents actually are (beyond the buzzwords), why giving them unchecked access to your systems is like handing a toddler a Sharpie, and what his team is building to make agents safer and more manageab...

Our chat with Erica Hanson, a global developer relations and community leader who spent over 17 years at Google before leading DevRel at Flutter Flow. Erica shares how she grew Google's developer community programs to reach 3 million developers and students annually across 110+ countries. We discussed how to validate the demand for your product community using data, the feedback loop between commu...

Maybe you own hundreds of vinyl records but keep playing the same five. Streaming algorithms push new music. E-commerce nudges the next purchase. Everything is optimized for acquisition these days but what about the stuff we already have? Ash Ryan Arnwine thinks there's a shift happening: away from accumulation, toward appreciation. Tech that doesn't compete for your attention, but helps you go de...

In this episode of Megashift, Rob Kleiman sits down with Sarah Greisdorf, who leads the community team at Squarespace representing its Circle program: a community of over 100,000 web designers, freelancers, and developers building Squarespace websites for clients. Sarah shares the origin story of the Circle program, which launched nearly 10 years ago around a shared passion for the Squarespace pla...

For businesses using Slack to engage customers and ambassadors, Slack-based communities aren't just side channels anymore. Zach Hawtof, CEO & Co-founder of TightKnit.ai, explains how his platform creates searchable microsites synced with Slack and turns all those buried slack threads into accessible knowledge teams can actually act on. Rob Kleiman and Zach Hawtof discuss why AI-native companie...

In an era where algorithms decide what you might hear next, Arielle Nissenblatt built something different: a community-powered podcast recommendation engine rooted in taste AND data. Since 2017, she's run Earbuds. Audio—a weekly curated newsletter where real people pick real episodes around a theme. No machine learning. Just the network effect of good taste. Now at Pinwheel, she helps creators and...

Kevin Clancy, an HR industry leader shares insights on modernizing HR in tech: from AI-powered recruiting tools to creating empathetic employee experiences. He discusses navigating crucial conversations, avoiding AI over-reliance, and building learning programs that retain top talent. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kristin Kovner, CEO and Founder of K-Squared Strategies, discusses how marketing creates markets and the major shifts happening as AI transforms product discovery. Kristin helped launch YouTube's video advertising business at Google & AOL and now has advised 100+ high-growth tech companies on their go-to-market strategies. She's watching a major shift unfold: people ask ChatGPT and Claude ques...

"It's not just SEO anymore." Garrett Sussman explains why AI search requires a completely new strategy. Garrett Sussman, Director of Marketing at iPullRank, breaks down how ChatGPT, AI Overviews, and conversational search are fundamentally changing digital visibility—and what businesses must do to adapt. 🔑 WHAT WE COVER: Relevance engineering: The 5-pillar framework replacing traditional SEO Quer...

TREND ALERT: Keyboard is building an open-source universal MCP server that securely connects all your tools to any AI client—unlocking infinite productivity without sacrificing security. Rob Kleiman talks with Keyboard co-founders Stephen Roland (ex-Stripe) and Andrew Van Beek (ex-Okta) about the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and how it's transforming AI from answering questions to actually doing w...

Mario Camaj of Kormilo Consulting discusses Quantum Computing Layers, AI and Enterprises of the Future with Megashift's Rob Kleiman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We had the distinct pleasure of chatting with Developer Relations pioneer and Author Caroline Lewko of DevRel. Agency about her journey in the tech field and how Developer Relations remains central to the rapidly evolving field of AI. Caroline shared fascinating reflections from navigating the early mobile days and lessons learned that can be applied to the wild west of AI. Specifically, we discus...

Learning how Prolog NYC helps develop creativity in people/teams via assessments that map to 5 strengths: novelty, efficacy, beauty, connectivity, completeness. In this episode we discuss the future of harnessing AI to build on creative competencies and a share understanding of definitions around what makes something or someone inherently creative. Learn more @ https://prolognyc.com Hosted on Acas...

Ben Loeb and I met at American University during undergrad. Since then, he spent 7 years cutting his teeth at Microsoft as a marketer. Now he is the FIRST MARKETING RESEARCH HIRE at Compass. And he’s sure to be doing some big things there. In this interview, we chat about his background in marketing research, product marketing, business consulting, and corporate strategy. We focus on some of the w...

TREND ALERT: Tapuya Brands acquires native Amazon private label products and turns them into consumer-valued brands on and beyond Amazon. Iaasc Linson is leading the charge and building a business to seize the market opportunity. He has great enthusiasm for this new model and we chat about it here. Using proprietary technology, the company discovers and buys high revenue, above-average margin, and...

Together we learn about Enas Hassan's background as a multimedia artist. Her current role is Coordinator of the International ANDY Awards. In this series of videos we look at how her roots as an artist inform the work she does to curate and coordinate the global awards show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

HBCU.vc is an organization connecting and equipping the next generation of students, innovators, and investors at historically black colleges and universities (HBCU's) with knowledge, exposure, coaching and hands-on experience learning about Venture Capital. Bie Aweh is a member of the founding team and focuses on talent and curriculum development. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more i...

Rob Kleiman sits down with Jonathan Kriner of Tvision Insights to discuss how the company measures "eyes on screen" (the amount of attention paid to advertising and content on TV). The company is introducing market changing technology that allows advertisers to ask: if you run a TV ad, how do you know if people are actually in the room when the ad ran? And are they looking at the screen? This adds...

Rob Kleiman sits down with John Lynn of the Studio Project to discuss how Startup accelerator programs are the future of work and the future of education in the New Economy. John is a connector, innovator, and leader in the NYC tech community. Prior to co-founding the Studio Project, which builds accelerators inside the world’s largest public and private institutions, John established the Startup...

Micah Kotch, Managing Director of Urban-X, a New York-based Smart Cities Accelerator, discusses the model for accelerating the growth of civic tech startups focused on “Engineering the City as a Service” and making cities more livable, smarter, safer and efficient. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The process of creating an immersive experience takes many interdisciplinary skills. It requires design thinking, technical capabilities, and artistic considerations. Alex Girardeau, the content manager of VR Bible and a curator for VR Related, brings all these skills to the table. Alex is a recent transplant to the NYC tech scene. He spent most of his early efforts studying therapeutic applicatio...