The company at the heart of the AI bubble

Entrepreneur and investor Mark Ein talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about his recent purchase of the Washington City Paper, an alternative weekly newspaper in Washington, D.C. Ein says he’s been inspired by the revitalization of The Washington Post under Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, but a local paper like his has to think differently in some aspects. He also talks about his investment firm, VentureHouse, and why D.C. and other cities outside of Silicon Valley have struggled to create a breakout tech hit in the post-AOL era. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

26 Feb 201851min

Aspect Ventures co-founder Jennifer Fonstad talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about how venture capital works in 2018, when Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have access to more money from more sources than ever before. But that that money is not spread out evenly, Fonstad says: There’s a lot of very early “seed” dough, and a lot available to help succeeding companies grow bigger, but not enough to help them cross the “chasm” in which so many startups fail. She also talks about her 17 years as an investor at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, why Aspect is betting on the “picks and shovels” of the blockchain instead of currency, and why she’s excited about data-driven advances in health care. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

21 Feb 201854min

Benchmark partner Sarah Tavel talks with Recode's Kara Swisher and Teddy Schleifer about her career in tech companies and venture capital. Her resume includes stints at Pinterest, Bessemer Venture Partners and Greylock Partners, but last year she became the first woman partner hired at Benchmark, where one of her focuses is cryptocurrencies. She explains why the field is interesting even though it has been flooded with scammy ICOs since late 2017. Tavel also talks about what she and other female VCs are doing to help women succeed in tech and how she views the influx of money into the ecosystem from SoftBank. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

19 Feb 20181h 11min

Lydia Polgreen, the editor in chief of HuffPost — the website formerly known as The Huffington Post — talks with Recode's Kara Swisher and Peter Kafka at the 2018 Code Media conference in Huntington Beach, Calif. Polgreen explains what she has been changing since taking over the top editor role in December 2016, how she's trying to reach a broader audience that includes Donald Trump supporters and why HuffPost is investing less in Facebook than it used to. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

17 Feb 201841min

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki talks with Recode's Kara Swisher at the 2018 Code Media conference in Huntington Beach, Calif. She explains why YouTube opted not to ban one of its stars, Logan Paul, despite a recent string of controviersies including a video he filmed of a dead body in Japan. She also talks about how the site has dealt with revelations of Russian political meddling, why it still doesn't see itself as a media company and what she thinks of rivals like Facebook that are pushing more and more into video: "They should get back to baby pictures." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

14 Feb 201843min

Jeremy Bailenson, the director of Stanford University's Virtual Human Interaction Lab, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new book, "Experience on Demand: What Virtual Reality Is, How It Works, and What It Can Do." Bailenson came to Stanford to study how people can communicate with each other in a virtual world, but now his focus is on how VR can motivate us to eat less, help the homeless or have empathy with a person of another race, gender or age. He discusses why the technology has not yet taken off among consumers and why tech and media companies are wrong to think we should be spending hours at a time in a VR headset. Plus: Why telling a story in virtual reality is so much harder than telling one on a 2-D screen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

12 Feb 201849min

Harvard Business School historian Nancy Koehn talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about her new book, “Forged In Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times.” In it, Koehn chronicles the lives of five leaders who had to overcome a crisis: President Abraham Lincoln, abolitionist Frederick Douglass, explorer Ernest Shackleton, clergyman Dietrich Bonhoeffer and author Rachel Carson. People in Silicon Valley, Washington and beyond can learn a lot from history, she says — for example, how Lincoln used his writing and speeches to unite people around a broader purpose, and why not acting was often the right decision when tempers were flaring. Plus: How “real leaders” can unlock the potential of the people around them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

7 Feb 20181h 1min

Bloomberg Technology executive producer Emily Chang talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about her new book, “Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley.” Chang says the idea for the book originated when venture capitalist Michael Moritz suggested that bringing more women to Sequoia Capital might mean “lowering our standards.” However, in between then and now, Donald Trump was elected president and the #MeToo movement arose, which “changed dramatically” how many women would speak on the record. Plus: Chang discusses the impact of Ellen Pao and Susan Fowler, and her much-discussed Vanity Fair story about sex parties and “cuddle puddles” in Silicon Valley. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

5 Feb 20181h 6min