Times Tech

Latest Episodes:

Larva Labs’ Matt Hall: “Creating cryptopunks" Apr 16, 2021

Show notes

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Matt Hall, founder of Larva Labs, to talk about creating cryptopunks (3:00), what he did before this (4:30), creating cryptopunks in 2017 (9:00), cryptokitties (11:00), how it works (12:45), giving them away (14:00), from zero to a $250m market (15:15), why NFTs took off (20:05), who is buying them (24:20), trying 50 other things before this (25:45), Autoglyphs (27:00) and what’s next (29:25).

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Terraformation’s Yishan Wong: “Forest as a service” Apr 09, 2021

Show notes

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Yishan Wong, founder of Terraformation, to talk about his plan to plant a trillion trees (3:30), his days running Reddit (8:10), on whether social media is manageable (10:50), working at Paypal and Facebook in the early days (13:15), marrying tech and tree planting (15:15), how he got into climate change (18:00), making tree-planting a business (23:15), the first project (28:20), the reforestation bottleneck (33:20), why solar is key (36:05), raising venture capital (44:00), selling forest “kits” (47:30), banking on a shift in thought (52:10), his lessons from scaling Facebook (57:45), why trees are the easiest answer (1:02:15), and why the goal is 1 trillion (1:04:50).

PLUS: Gianni Settino on why he joined an investor group that spent $208,000 on a Lebron James video highlight (1:06:40), tinkering with ethereum (1:08:50), cryptokitties (1:11:45), building a crypto football card experience (1:15:40), NBA Top Shot (1:16:30), buying the Lebron James card (1:19:00), what his parents said (1:22:00), and whether this is a bubble (1:25:15).

Get The Times and The Sunday Times for a BIG discount by clicking here: times.co.uk/dannyinthevalley

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alchemy's Nikil Viswanathan: "NFTs are the future" Apr 02, 2021

Show notes

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Nikil Viswanathan, co-founder of Alchemy, to talk about the boom in non-fungible tokens (NFT’s) (3:00), his first app (7:50), what Alchemy does (10:10), how much NFT sales have grown since January (14:00), fads and staying power (17:30), the value of digital goods (20:20), the weirdest NFTs (23:30), the future (25:15), how Alchemy makes money (30:30), growing up in small-town Texas (34:00), Stanford (35:15), his worst day (36:35), and his investors (40:00). PLUS: Raj Choudhury, of Harvard Business School, comes on to talk about the return to work (42:00), the 25% model (44:20), engineering random interactions (48:40), getting senior people to buy in (51:30), the problem with our “meeting culture” (54:10), the financial benefits of “work from anywhere” (58:30), recreating the office (1:00:45), and reversing the rural brain drain (1:01:15).

Get The Times and The Sunday Times for a BIG discount by clicking here: times.co.uk/dannyinthevalley

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tim O'Reilly: "Silicon Valley: turning idealists into monopolists" Mar 26, 2021

Show notes

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Tim O’Reilly to talk about the end of Silicon Valley as we know it (3:30), how the markets were designed to give us monopolies (6:30), his history in tech (90), incentives (10:30), the coming crash (17:00), the tech industry’s changing culture (23:15), how venture investors now pick the winners (26:15), on whether Silicon Valley can do deep tech (29:15), the antitrust backlash (38:20), how the industry is moving away from its ideals (38:35), how that tax code powers the bubble (40:55), and the next opportunities (45:00).

Get The Times and The Sunday Times for a BIG discount by clicking here: times.co.uk/dannyinthevalley

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chargepoint's Pat Romano: "We just had to wait it out" Mar 19, 2021

Show notes

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Pat Romano, chief executive of Chargepoint, to talk about taking a company public in a pandemic (4:20), the electric car revolution (7:30), about whether there are enough chargers (11:40), why charging cars will be completely different from filling up at a petrol station (11:20), how long before we think of EV’s as just cars (16:50), the lack of standards (18:00), going to the market via SPAC (20:15), the rush of electric car companies to the market (23:15), and investor interest (25:50), the race between electric cars and the infrastructure they will require (34:00), subsidies (34:35), how he makes money (37:55), and how the world changed in 10 years (40:30).

Click here for Pat Romano's first interview more than two years ago:

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/chargepoints-pat-romano-hiding-in-plain-sight/id1233991021?i=1000425353783

Get The Times and The Sunday Times for a BIG discount by clicking here: times.co.uk/dannyinthevalley

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Timnit Gebru: "Google's ethical AI fig leaves" Mar 12, 2021

Show notes

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Timnit Gebru, former co-head of Google’s ethical AI research team, to talk about how she arrived at Google (3:30), starting Black in AI (5:30), why diversity matters (8:40), her work at Google (12:30), gender shades research (15:50), the paper that got her booted from Google (19:10), large language models (20:50), what her paper addressed (27:30), why AI matters (30:15), the danger of undermining independent research (33:15), her co-founder getting fired (35:40), getting harassed online (37:20), and the tension between corporations and academia (39:00).

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Zeus Living’s Kulveer Taggar: “It was all unravelling before my eyes” Mar 05, 2021

Show notes

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Kulveer Taggar, founder of Zeus Living, to talk about a year like no other (2:50), the first wave of cancellations 6:230), choosing to give money back (10:10), getting blanked by investors (11:40), his “Jerry Maguire” moment (14:15), Zoom layoffs (16:00), regaining ground (20:10), his co-founder’s wife getting cancer (23:10), getting back to growth (30:20), the hotel industry (34:15), changing how he works (36:30), and hearing from ex-employees (42:40).

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nurx’s Varsha Rao: “The simplest things were incredibly hard” Feb 26, 2021

Show notes

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Varsha Rao, chief executive of Nurx, to talk about running a women’s health company in Covid (2:50), seeing demand double (6:40), the staying power of telehealth (8:50), doing a startup in the first dotcom boom (13:35), what she learned (16:35), being a female founder (18:20), joining as an early executive at Airbnb (20;50), shifting to healthcare (25:30), starting at Nurx at a difficult time (27:55), launching migraine and acne treatments (31:30), convincing insurance companies to pay (33:10), what’s changed since the first bubble (36:40), and her best and worst days (38:05).

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Varda’s Delian Asparouhov: “The space gold rush” Feb 19, 2021

Show notes

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Delian Asparouhov, founder of Varda Industries, to talk about manufacturing in space (3:00), the collapse in launch costs (6:45), SpaceX’s Starship (8:55), coming to America from Bulgaria (11:30), the math Olympiad (12:20), his previous tech jobs (14:55), founder dating (17:45), building space factories (24:20), the ‘coming down’ challenge (26:05), setting a 2-year timeline (29:20), the pitch to investors (30:50), what else can be made in microgravity (34:05), and what you can do in two days in space (41:20).

Get The Times free for a month: https://app.times.radio/dannyinthevalley

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason Calacanis: Silicon Valley v the media Feb 12, 2021

Show notes

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Jason Calacanis, to talk about the de-platfroming of Trump (4:45), the revelation that is Trump-less Twitter (9:15), Silicon Valley v the media (12:15), the editing process (17:30), his term “late-stage journalism” (19:50), subscriptions and popularity (23:25), the direction of journalism (28:00), the increased scrutiny of Big Tech (30:30), free agent journalists (34:15), Twitter v Clubhouse (36:30), and Robinhood (41:45).

Get The Times free for a month: https://app.times.radio/dannyinthevalley

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected