Big Technology Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Inside Spotify's War With Apple — With Spotify Chief Legal Officer Horacio Gutierrez Nov 17, 2021

Show notes

Horacio Gutierrez is Spotify's head of global affairs and chief legal officer. He's a relentless critic of the way Apple treats smaller companies, testifying before the Senate in April that the company is abusing its power and harming competition. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss how Spotify has experienced Apple's behavior, why it's decided to speak up, and whether anything will come of this latest round of antitrust scrutiny for the tech giants.

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The Venture Capitalist Who Can't Lose — With Zach Coelius Nov 10, 2021

Show notes

Zach Coelius is the managing partner of Coelius Capital. He's participating in an unprecedented moment where venture capitalists like him simply can't lose. There's so much money flooding the private markets that, as he put it, "any idiot with a checkbook looks like a genius right now." Coelius joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss why this is happening, where it will lead, and who gets hurt when the party ends. Stay tuned for the third segment where we read his tweets and mostly talk about San Francisco's many challenges.

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The Motivations of Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen — With Her Lawyer Lawrence Lessig Nov 03, 2021

Show notes

Lawrence Lessig is Frances Haguen's lawyer and a Harvard Law School professor. He joins Big Technology Podcast to address the various questions about Haugen's motivations, backers, and intent that have percolated since she came forward. We start by addressing whether the the leaked documents should be available to all and move into the conspiracies about her. A lively discussion follows.

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Are We Having a Moral Panic About Instagram? — With NYT's Farhad Manjoo Oct 27, 2021

Show notes

Farhad Manjoo is an opinion columnist for the New York Times. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss whether the criticism of Instagram's impact on kids is overblown, the subject of a recent column. Stay tuned for the third segment, where we discuss Farhad's views of virtual reality, his Thanksgiving column, and his cats.

Subscribe to Big Technology: https://bigtechnology.substack.com/

Farhad's story about Instagram: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/opinion/instagram-teenagers.html

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Amazon Rigs Search, Social Media 'Ampliganda,' Netflix Protests — With Adrianne Jeffries, Renee DiResta, and Zoë Schiffer Oct 20, 2021

Show notes

Join us for a 'mega' episode with three guests! The Markup investigative reporter Adrianne Jeffries leads off with a discussion of Amazon's self-preferencing in search. Stanford Internet Observatory's Renee DiResta joins for our second segment to discuss her story on bottom-up propaganda on social media, something she calls 'ampliganda.' Verge Reporter Zoë Schiffer rounds out the week with a look into the state of worker activism at Netflix and Apple.

Check out Adrianne's story on The Markup, Renee's in The Atlantic, and Zoe's on The Verge.

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Is Social Media A Scapegoat For Bigger Problems? — With Charlie Warzel at Unfinished Live Oct 13, 2021

Show notes

Charlie Warzel writes the Galaxy Brain newsletter on Substack, a publication he started after a career at The New York Times and BuzzFeed. Warzel joins Big Technology Podcast in a live recording at Unfinished Live to discuss what a nuanced conversation about social media's harms should look like. Stay tuned for the second half where we discuss Warzel's views on post-Covid workplace culture, the subject Out of Office, a forthcoming book for which he is a co-author.

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Why Facebook Will Keep Building For Kids — With Michael Sayman Oct 06, 2021

Show notes

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, here: https://amzn.to/3uNDazI

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Amazon Builds a Robot and Threatens Apple — With Wired's Lauren Goode Sep 30, 2021

Show notes

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.

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Unraveling The Mystery Of Peter Thiel — With Max Chafkin Sep 22, 2021

Show notes

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 him.

You can find the book here: https://amzn.to/3AwAKHB

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A Look Into Facebook's Soul — With WSJ's Jeff Horwitz and Ex-FB Exec. Brian Boland Sep 18, 2021

Show notes

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 Facebook, dissecting the company's responses, and looking at potential solutions.

Enjoy this bonus episode!

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