The Times Tech Podcast

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on George Church, co-founder of Colossal, to talk about genetically bringing back the wooly mammoth (3:40), what has made this possible (7:00), co-founding 38 companies (9:40), science fiction made real (11:20), reversing aging (14:50), the typical pushback to the mammoth idea (19:40), the climate change angle (22:10), raising money (25:40)...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Nat Manning, founder of Kettle, to talk about how climate change is upending insurance (5:00), the role of reinsurers as “the second parachute” (10:40), updating risk models with machine learning (14:45), building a better mousetrap (20:30), how meditation lent clarity (28:0), getting into disaster relief (31:30), the long tail of suffer...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on High Fidelity’s Philip Rosedale to talk about virtual worlds before the Internet (4:00), founding Second Life (8:00), capturing the zeitgeist (11:00), Second Life today (16:05), the current metaverse hype (20:10), the challenge of living a virtual life (23:10), the folly of the “hybrid” workplace (29:20), the dangers of virtual life (31:...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Adi Tatarko, founder of unicorn Houzz, to talk about the home improvement boom pandemic (2:45), the pandemic (5:15), ending up in California from Israel (9:30), a renovation project gone wrong (15:00), getting the first cheque for Houzz (20:50), raising $600 million more as a husband and wife team (27:40), on whether she plans to go public (30:00), ho...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Magi Richani to talk about cheese (4:15), how her lactose intolerance led her to start a company (7:30), the inefficiency of the cow (10:40), moving from Lebanon to Texas (15:50), becoming an engineer (20:45), starting out in the oil industry (24:15), rescuing animals (27:20), quitting Shell (30:00), coming from an entrepreneurial family...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Dave Friedberg, founder of The Production Board, to talk about the western US’s ‘mega-drought’ (5:15), attracting cash to climate tech (8:30), the economic consequences of climate change (13:15), creating the Climate Corporation (16:15), getting investment from Larry Page (22:10), and Koch Industries (25:25), the future of food (28:00),...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Justin McLeod, founder of Hinge, to talk about dating in the pandemic (2:41), launching an app (4:33), his early years as a “hot mess” (5:51), cleaning up his act (6:50), loneliness (9:45), overhauling the app (12:15), the irony of maximizing for “time in app” (15:03), injecting friction into the proces...

Pearson’s Andy Bird: “Education is going to be disrupted like music” The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Andy Bird, chief executive of Pearson, to talk about transforming the education giant (5:40), creating textbook “playlists” (8:30), growing up in Manchester (14:45), getting into the entertainment industry (16:10), being recruited by Bob Iger (21:30), remaking Disney's...

Amid Facebook's record-setting financial performance and its pivot toward become a "metaverse" company, we air a revealing interview from last year (March 2020) with Stephen Levy, author of Facebook: The Inside Story, Levy talks about the moment he decided to write the book (4:15), the first time he met Zuck (8:55), the “book of change” (10:30), why Zuckerberg didn’t need an “adult in the room” (1...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Antonio Garcia Martinez, to talk about his winding career in tech and media (3:25), living in the woods (7:25), his Facebook memoir (11:00), criticizing tech but also defending it (15:55), landing a gig at Apple and then getting fired (20:10), the Silicon Valley culture wars (23:25), launching a newsletter (30:25), the breakdown of the m...

The Sunday Times' tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Tim Janssen of Sofar to talk about the paucity of ocean data (3:30), creating an ocean sensing network (6:15), the engineering challenge (8:30), modeling (10:30), why he left academia (15:15), raising money (19:20), coming here from the Netherlands (21:10), his customers (22:30), what’s happening in the oceans (33:25), and dropping the f...

We repost a podcast from Tales of Silicon Valley, the narrative podcast that Danny did two years ago. In the week that Sir Richard Branson touched space, and just days before Jeff Bezos prepares to do so as well, we go back to this investigatio into how billionaires are racing to become the first to settle on the moon. We talk to astronauts, and the billionaires themselves, about their plans to tu...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Christian Angermeyer to talk about spending $40 million on his own money to reinvent the psychedelics industry (3:46), his first magic mushroom experience (6:58), convincing investors (11:09), targeting opioid addiction (17:35), the stoned ape theory (21:06), the legal challenge (24:33), the timeline (28:35), the social media effect...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Brett Adcock and Adam Goldstein, co-founders of Archer Aviation, to talk about their air taxi startup (6:00), starting out in recruiting (9:00), how they pivoted to flying cars (12:30), setting up an aeronautics lab (18:20), designing a plane (21:30), finding a billionaire backer (30:00), and then United Airlines (33:00), launching by 20...

Danny will be back later this week with more tales from the valley. But first, here's a special extra episode from the team behind "Secrets of the Side Hustle" Food waste is one of the biggest contributors to the climate crisis. Could sharing be the solution? Tessa Clarke, co-founder of the OLIO app thinks so. She sat down with host, Laura Jackson, to talk about how tech companies can change the w...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Grant LaFontaine, co-founder of Whatnot, to talk about creating the successor to eBay (3:40), the collectibles boom (7:50), his first startup (12:30), his early interest in marketplaces (14:25), working at Youtube (17:40), launching Whatnot in 2019 (23:45), starting with Funkopops (27:55), what’s happening in China (33:30), what works ab...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Tim Barat, founder of Gridware, to talk about dropping out of school at 15 (4:30), his first company (11:30), moving to California (17:50), getting into college (22:30), the problem he's targeting (25:00), wildfires (28:20), building a super sensor (34:00), starting a company (36:30), raising money (42:30), how the tech works (51:50), ho...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Gabby Dizon, founder of Yield Guild Games, to talk about starting a gaming guild (4:10), the crypto winter (8:25), Axie Infinity (10:00), an in-game economy (13:55), creating a scholarship programme (17:55), the perception of value (25:00), raising $1.3 million (28:00), struggling to keep his gaming studio alive (29:05), growing up in Manila (30:40),...

But we're back next week! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Alec Lee, founder of Endless West, to talk about re-engineering whiskey (2:45), starting out in stem cells (6:15), how a Napa wine trip inspired their startup (7:45), the regulatory hurdles (10:50), pitching investors (13:45), the key tech advances (16:45), how he makes whiskey (20:50), reducing to hours what takes years (26:00), how he’ll spend the $...

The Sunday Times tech correspondent brings on Jim Mellon, the billionaire investor and co-founder of Agronomics, to talk about the lab-grown meat revolution (2:40), why he thinks he’s not too early (7:40), the dairy industry example (9:30), replacing traditional industries (11:00), why cultured meat will be bigger than electric vehicles (15:00), the carbon crackdown coming for meat (16:45), foetal...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Dr Mark Kotter, co-founder of Meatable and Bit Bio, to talk about the synthetic biology revolution (4:10), growing flesh (7:00), the field’s “big bang” (9:15), lab-grown meat (16:30), how far we are from a reverse-engineered ribeye (20:00), the “Meat 2.0” era (22:00), the branding challenge (26:30), creating a synthetic biology platform...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Josh Browder, founder of DoNotPay, to talk about leaving San Francisco (4:15), the quiet exodus (7:15), why San Francisco is “unfriendly” to business (11:30), why Miami feels real (14:04), DoNotPay’s plans (18:00), privacy (21:35), the future of San Francisco (22:40), and the straw that broke the camel’s back (24:25). Hosted on Acast. Se...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Fraser Robinson, founder of Beacon, to talk about solving supply chains (2:45), the problem (5:10), his first startup (11:15), becoming the “adult in the room” (18:30), the early days at lastminute.com (19:50), starting another business in 2010 (22:30), getting recruited to Uber (24:45), running Uber in Europe (27:10), how to move fast a...

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Sid Sijbrandij, co-founder of Gitab, to talk about running a remote-first company (2:45), how it works (5:45), organising informal communication (8:30), minimising meetings (9:45), on-boarding (12:30), convincing investors (14:15), the problem with “hybrid” work models (15:50), the future of cities (18:15), and inventing ways to measure...