BeeFlow's Matias Viel: "Bionic Bees"
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), using insects to increase crop yields (25:30), the potential risks involved in bee biotech (27:20), the decline in bee populations (30:20), getting farmers to buy in (32:35), trying to grow the company (35:05), and the coming revolution in agriculture (38:05). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 Maalis 201940min
Renee DiResta: "Information gone haywire"
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 (21:25), how Amazon gets gamed (23:00), how trying to get her son into preschool got her in to propaganda research(26:45), how conspiracy theories spread (31:30), why tech giants claim to be platforms, not media companies (34:40), Google’s “your money or your life” search function (37:45), why “host not promote” is a better alternative (38:45), the fixes for misinformation (39:50), her work on ISIS’ online strategy (43:20), the slippery slope argument (47:35), and why she is optimistic (52:05). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
22 Helmi 201957min
Patreon's Jack Conte: “People used to pay for things”
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 (18:10), how he started (19:45), launching a company (23:10), needing to raise more venture capital (25:10), how he polices the platform (26:55), the problem with the word “influencer” (29:10), how micropayments could change the way the internet works (32:35), why he doesn’t call them “fan clubs” (34:10), the changing nature of the web (37:40), the predictability of donations (39:30), and the rise of the creators (41:25). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
15 Helmi 201943min
Academia.edu's Richard Price: "The end of the paywall"
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 on a centuries-old business model (15:45), the importance of prestige (19:55), quality control (21:05), the last bastion in publishing untouched by the Internet (25:30), and bankrolling free access with a core of subscribers (28:15). PLUS: Jeffery Mackie-Mason, head librarian at the University of California, comes on to talk about his showdown with Elsevier over the publisher’s “extortionary” prices (32:10), how subscription rates have soared (35:05), unleashing scientific progress (37:15), playing hardball (39:00), how publishing giants have defended their turf (40:45), reaching a tipping point (42:45), the publishers beginning to break ranks (46:10), and the key to the traditional players’ power (47:15). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
8 Helmi 201951min
Uber's Mark Moore: "Don't call them flying cars"
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 market (15:25), seeding a manufacturing boom (17:20), the pilot shortage (18:20), why our skies are about to get very crowded (20:45), how much it will cost (23:25), and why air taxis could convince us to give up our cars (25:25). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 Helmi 201928min
Five questions with... Benedict Evans
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 next frontier in tech? (29:35), 5. Have driverless cars sputtered? (36:45) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
25 Tammi 201945min
Credit Karma's Nichole Mustard: "Self-driving finance"
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 planning (16:30), starting Credit Karma on the cusp of the financial crisis (18:20), and the opportunity created by the Great Recession (24:25), building trust but also collecting bounties (26:50), the virtualisation of finance (29:50), how personal finance will become more like self-driving clike (32:50), the road to a stock-market float (37:05), and her worst day of work (41:15), Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
18 Tammi 201945min
DoNotPay's Josh Browder: "Your very own robot lawyer”
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 for lawyers (13:15), his family’s rebel history (14:15), eliminating the need for lawyers (17:25), the inevitability of automation (20:35), the weaknesses of artificial intelligence (22:10), targeting vested interests (25:00), his new privacy bot in Europe (26:50), creating a business around a free core service (27:45), the most endangered white-collar jobs (30:55), the ethics of AI (31:55), the tech backlash (34:00), and the possibility of generalised AI (36:55), Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
11 Tammi 201939min
