Source Code

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The smartest phone $10 can buy Jul 14, 2021

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You’re probably listening to this on a smartphone. That smartphone probably cost hundreds of dollars, if not well over a thousand. (Looking at you, iPhone Pro Max owners.) For billions of people around the world, those devices are simply not affordable.

Feature phones are alive and well, and KaiOS CEO Sebastien Codeville knows the landscape as well as anyone. KaiOS was created in 2015 out of Mozilla’s failed Firefox OS project, and has become a hugely popular operating system on super-cheap phones. KaiOS devices cost as little as $17; they typically have smaller screens and lots of physical buttons; they prize durability and days-long battery life over fancy features. And yet the people who use them, use them in entirely familiar ways. They text, they watch videos, they pay for stuff. For people all over the world, KaiOS-powered “smart feature phones” are a first introduction to the internet, and in many cases their users’ primary screen experience.

Codeville joined the Source Code podcast to discuss KaiOS, the challenges of building an app store and hardware for cheap devices, and why smartphones won’t kill feature phones anytime soon. Or maybe ever.

For more on the topics in this episode:

For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.

Biden’s competition order and Branson’s space travel Jul 11, 2021

Show notes

Ben Brody joins the show to discuss President Biden’s long, sprawling executive order on competition, and all the topics from net neutrality to right-to-repair that matter to the tech industry. Then Anna Kramer discusses Richard Branson’s impending flight to space, how regular people train to become astronauts, and how long it’ll take before we can get on a rocket the same way we get on a plane.

For more on the topics in this episode:

For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.

How Dropbox figured out the future of work Jul 08, 2021

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Dropbox was one of the first companies to go all-in on remote work. In October 2020, even as the Covid-19 pandemic continued to rage with no end in sight, CEO Drew Houston declared that “virtual first” was the future of Dropbox. Melanie Collins, the company’s chief people officer, has been a leading force in figuring out what that actually means in practice.

Melanie joined the show to discuss Dropbox’s way of thinking about remote work, how it’s redesigning offices, how to measure employees when you can’t see their butts in seats, and much more.

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Redesigning the 9-5 Jul 02, 2021

Show notes

What does the workday of the future look like? When does it start? Where do you go? What tools do you use? How do bosses measure success? Do we know ... anything yet?

That's what we discussed in a recent live event, called Redesigning the 9-5. We were joined by Danielle Brown, the chief people officer at Gusto; Javier Soltero, the VP of Workspace at Google; and Jen Grant, the CEO of Appify. It was a great, practical conversation, and we thought you might enjoy it as well.

How to build a better Google Jun 29, 2021

Show notes

Sridhar Ramaswamy worked at Google for 15 years. By the end of his time at the company, he ran a team of thousands that helped make Google make billions. How? By selling ads.

Now, Ramaswamy is out to do something different. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Neeva, a new search engine that has no ads, aims to preserve user privacy, and relies on a subscription business to make it all work. Ramaswamy is convinced that’s the right way to build the search engine the world needs now, and to build a company that can do right by users, investors, and the internet all at the same time.

Ramaswamy joined the show to talk about the job a search engine does, how things change when you get rid of ads, and why he’s not worried that Google’s going to crush him.

For more on the topics in this episode:

For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.

Windows 11, all the antitrust bills and Twitter’s ethical AI Jun 27, 2021

Show notes

First, we do a quick run through what’s new in Windows 11, and what it means for the tech industry as a whole. Then Ben Brody explains the fate of the five — sorry, six now — antitrust bills currently being debated in the House. Finally, Anna Kramer talks about the challenges of building an ethical AI team, and how Twitter seems to have gotten it right.

For more on the topics in this episode:

For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.

Lessons from a remote CEO Jun 23, 2021

Show notes

A lot of CEOs have spent the last 15 months getting used to remote work. Amir Salihefendic, the CEO of Doist, is not one of those people. He’s been running a company across many time zones, in many countries, for years. And he’s learned a thing or two about what it takes to do it right — and why getting it right is as much about embracing asynchronous work than it is just sending everybody home.

Salihefendic joined the show to discuss how async should work, how Doist built a messaging app that feels very different from Slack, why companies should swap meetings for documents and offices for retreats, and much more.

For more on the topics in this episode:

For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.

How ransomware boomed — and where it goes next Jun 16, 2021

Show notes

After more than two decades at the FBI, Gurvais Grigg was looking for something to do post-retirement. So he picked … cryptocurrency and financial crimes. Grigg is now the global public sector CTO at Chainalysis, where he spends his time working with companies and governments on financial investigations involving cryptocurrency and the blockchain. He joined the Source Code podcast to explain the rise in ransomware, how the industry works (and its eerie parallels to the rest of the tech industry), and what governments and companies should be doing to protect themselves.

For more on the topics in this episode:

For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.

The future according to Xbox and Apple Jun 13, 2021

Show notes

Nick Statt joins the show to talk about Microsoft’s big investment in cloud gaming, and what it could mean for the rest of the tech industry. Then he talks about the most interesting things from WWDC, and what to watch for at E3. Finally, Anna Kramer joins the show to talk about how tech companies are planning to return to the office, and why their plans are generating so much backlash.

For more on the topics in this episode:

For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.

Tech’s plan to fix the food chain Jun 09, 2021

Show notes

Big Tech is coming for your kitchen. In recent years companies like Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods and Plenty have raised huge sums of money and have been attempting to find a cheaper, more efficient, more sustainable way to feed the world. Some of it involves creative new uses of plants, and some involves creating wholly new building blocks in a lab.

Larissa Zimberoff has been chronicling this space for years, most recently in her book, “Technically Food: Inside Silicon Valley’s Mission to Change What We Eat.” She’s eaten all the strange proteins, been in the labs, and seen firsthand what it takes to rethink the way the world eats. Spoiler alert: It’s not going to be easy.

Zimberoff joined the Source Code podcast to discuss how tech and food became intertwined in the first place, why so much of the future is actually about cows, which companies are most promising, and which futuristic foods might find a way into your fridge before long.

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