The Times Tech Podcast

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Neil Mahapatra, founder of Kingsley Capital and Oxford Cannabinoid Technologies, to talk about his early days in investment banking (3:30), getting a job with Lord Rothschild (5:50), setting up his own investment firm (7:30), how his mother’s lung cancer changed everything (8:15), why the stoners won’t make it (12:45), carving out a beac...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Kai Fu Lee, former head of Google China and founder of Sinovation Ventures, to talk about the dawning of the age of artificial intelligence (3:35), why this is the tip of the iceberg (5:50), why up to 40% of jobs will be replaced (7:30), how China’s approach differs (9:40), how AI is like nuclear technology (10:05), whether it should be a human right...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Dan Buettner to talk about how to live a longer, healthier life (6:00), keeping it simple (8:55), what happens when a spouse dies (11:15), what are “blue zones” (11:30), the secret to longevity (14:30), why happiness doesn’t include a car (16:15), why genes don’t matter that much (18:40), why happiness is important (20:30), the sleep industry (23:10),...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Christian Angermayer, entrepreneur and investor, to talk about magic mushrooms (4:00), why he is investing now (6:55), the lack of new drugs for mental illness (9:50), why it’s worse in the West (12:00), his first “trip” (17:10), the psilocybin company he has backed with Peter Thiel (21:55), creating a new body of clinical research (25:4...

The Sunday Times tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Esther Wojcicki, educator and mother of Susan Wojcicki, CEO of Youtube, and Anne Wojcicki, founder of 23AndMe, to talk about the crisis in parenting (2:35), how her upbringing affected her approach (4:45), using TRICK (7:10), journalism as a tool to teach kids (9:55), the value of money (13:10) the coddling of children (16:50), the import...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Hiroki Takeuchi, founder of GoCardless, the payment processor and biggest fintech company you have never heard of, to talk about starting at Y Combinator 8 years ago (3:00), the first idea he had with Tom Blomfield and Matt of Monzo (6:00), switching ideas (9:20), why big businesses didn’t so this themselves (11:30), laying the payment p...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Arturo Elizondo, the 27-year-old founder of Clara Foods, to talk about his plan to make eggs with the chicken (3:25), how eggs are produced today (4:10), bioengineered birds (7:00), his lightbulb moment (8:40), not being a scientist (11:00), coming to San Francisco (13:15), repurposing an old technology (15:15), designing egg proteins (1...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Nova Spivack, founder of the Arch Mission Foundation, to talk about the lunar library (3:10), how is started in 2015 (6:40), doing a test mission with Elon Musk (7:55), packing 30m pages of data into a CD (9:25), safekeeping the keys to civilisation (13:10), storing special data in “vaults” (15:30), why he’s doing it (17:45), looking for...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Dr Alison Gopnik, a developmental psychologist, to talk about why babies could be the key to artificial intelligence (3:45), the limits to current systems (5:40), infants as supercomputers (8:00), the power of experimentation (10:15), how young brains learn (12:50), coding curiosity (16:15), how the tech industry has come around to kids (17:35), recre...

Humu’s Laszlo Bock: “Nudges” The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Laszlo Bock, founder of Humu, to talk about the fish that inspired him (3:00), coming to America as a refugee (4:15), why he chose human resources (5:05), becoming Google’s first head of people operations (6:20), why “open plan” offices are terrible (8:30), trusting people (11:15), experimenting on Google’s w...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Dr Phyllis Gardner, the Standord medical professor who came across Elizabeth Holmes before she started Theranos and then worked behind the scenes to expose her, to talk about her background at Stanford (4:00), and in industry (5:00), meeting a young Elizabeth Holmes (6:55), rejecting her first idea (8:10), using her “charm” to accumulate prominent men...

The Sunday Times’s tech correspondent brings on Troy Carter, Lady Gaga’s former manager and music executive, to talk about the importance of radio (3:40), why streaming is still evolving (6:10), the death of the album (7:20), showing up at Spotify (9:50), the music industry’s history of screwing artists (13:50), why artists are less desperate than they used to be (15:20), growing up as an aspiring...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Jon Vlassopulos to talk about the early days of digital music (3:30), investing in Napster (4:55), when ringtones were big business (10:20), getting into television with Deal or No Deal (16:15), Facebook’s interactive TV show (20:45), why lists are a good way to consume content (24:30), the problem with chronological feeds (27:00), how he plans to mon...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Matias Viel, founder of Beeflow, to talk about why bees are a big deal (3:05), why they need him (4:50), the almond industry (7:20), the booming bee rental business (9:55), making bees bionic (12:20), training them to pollinate the right plants (15:05), starting out in Argentina (18:50), ending up at IndieBio in San Francisco (23:00), us...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Renee Diresta, expert in online propaganda, to talk about the 2016 election as the web’s Lehman Brothers moment (3:45), why Facebook got rid of human curators (4:45), the problem with Facebook groups and the anti-vaccination movement (8:40), amoral algorithms (13:40), the war for time and attention (18:25), the “likes” black market (21:2...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Jack Conte, founder of Patreon, to talk about busking as a business model (2:10), the web’s weird love triangle (4:40), sending $500m to creators this year (5:05), how platforms work (9:00), what kind of stuff is successful on Patreon (11:30), like gaming (14:40), people looking for their tribe online (16:35), getting money from the Kushner family (18...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Richard Price, founder of Academia.edu, yo talk about how academic publishing works today (4:00), doing to publishing what Napster did to music (6:15) starting out with banana cakes (7:20), raising his first round of money (11:45), going from 50 sign-ups-a-day to 72m users (12:30), getting to 20m research papers uploaded (14:15), taking...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Mark Moore, head of engineering at Uber Elevate, to talk about flying cars (2:05), starting out at NASA (2:35), why air taxis are inevitable (4:05), why were are in a “Wright Brothers era” of air taxis (6:50), planning to launch in five years (8:05), the gridlock problem (10:35), going pilotless (12:15), taking air taxis to the mass mark...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Benedict Evans of Andreessen Horowitz to answer five big tech questions. 1. The smartphone era is over, now what? (1:50), 2. What is the state of artificial intelligence and machine learning, and should we be worried? (5:50), 3: What does good regulation of tech look like? (20:10), 4. What does the Consumer Electronics Show tell us about...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Nichole Mustard, co-founder of fintech unicorn Credit Karma, to talk about credit scores as a means to an end (2:20), the evolution of the credit score (4:45) how she ended up starting Credit Karma in 2007 (10:40), studying zoology at uni (12:35), buying a one-way ticket to California (13:35), working at Pizza Hut (14:50), leaving pizza for financial...

The Sunday Times tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Josh Browder, the 22-year-old founder of robot lawyer Donotpay, to talk about the end of the legal profession as we know it (2:25), getting 10,000 Uber refunds (4:35), how parking tickets led to him starting a company (6:10), and getting $15m in parking tickets overturned (8:55), expanding his bot's capabilities (11:50), his deep disdain...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Michael Seibel, chief executive of Y Combinator, the storied Silicon Valley startup bootcamp, to talk about why chaotic markets are good for startups (3:50), how he ended up at YC (6:20), the importance of clarity (7:50), why it’s both easier and harder than ever to launch a company (9:10), the power of the big guys (11:35), the need for regulation (1...

The Sunday Times’s tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Daniel Gross, founder of Pioneer, to talk about growing up as an Orthodox Jew in Jerusalem (2:40), applying to Y Combinator (3:40), escaping Army duty (5:40), having his first startup crash right before Demo Day (7:10), building a new product in 48 hours (8:55), selling to Apple (10:20), finding the next generation of geniuses (11:15),...

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 hurdl...

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 p...