Zeus Living's Kulveer Taggar: "The Greek god of corporate housing"
The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Kulveer Taggar, founder of Zeus Living, to talk about the Greek god of corporate housing (3:00), growing up in London (5:15), getting into Y Combinator (7:30), teaming up with Stripe founder Patrick Collison (10:40), becoming a millionaire at 24 (12:15), becoming a comedian (14:25), coming back to San Francisco to do Y Combinator again (18:00), why media coverage is not all it’s cracked up to be (23:40), pivoting to property management (26:40), how it works (31:00), why this is different from his other companies (33:15), the importance of location (36:25), his plan for life (39:50), living as a service (42:20), and his worst day (45:50). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
31 Jan 202049min
Fifty Years’ Seth Bannon: “Passing the Mr. Burns test”
The Sunday Times tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Seth Bannon, founder of venture capital firm Fifty Years, to talk about targeting the truly big problems (1:00), why it took 18 months to raise $5m (2:40), targeting lab-grown meat (6:30), getting the met lobby on their side (8:30), backing birth control (12:00), taking left-field approaches to climate (13:50), taking advantage of the Silicon Valley cultural crisis (17:15), the need for big winners (21:00), the slow death of the Fridman doctrine (26:00), how he started out as a young idealist (28:30), (33:30), when he faked it but didn’t make it (38:20), confessing his sins (41:05), and his worst day of work (42:15). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
24 Jan 202045min
Caliva's Dennis O'Malley: "We're simple farmers - of cannabis"
The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Dennis O’Malley, head of cannabis startup Caliva, to go from the buttoned-up corporate world to the weed industry (2:45), the ‘green rush’ (5:10), running a federally illegal business (7:50), the friction involved with buying weed products (13:00), their target market (14:40), raising $75m (16:30), charting a path toward legitimacy (20:00), partnering with Jay Z (22:30), trying to replace alcohol and pharma (29:10), not being able to advertise (34:15), the vaping crisis (38:35), whether it will ever go mainstream (40:30), the coming green crash (46:15), whether he needs black market expertise (48:15), his worst day of work (50:40), and whether filter bubbles help (55:20). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
17 Jan 202057min
Socos Labs' Vivienne Ming: “I want to build better people”
The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Vivienne Ming, founder of Socos Labs, to talk about ethics in artificial intelligence (2:25), passing on a job at Amazon (7:55), why its hiring algorithm failed (11:0), the death of professional human judgment (13:30), how work will have to change (23:15), the bifurcation of society (26:00), what Socos Labs is (31:30), why universal basic income is not the answer (39:00), the importance of learning to learn (45:25), creating a tech wise council (50:30), AI as an expert witness (59:45), how transitioning genders has coloured her views (1:03:40). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
10 Jan 20201h 17min
Atari’s Al Alcorn: “The dog who caught the car”
The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Al Alcorn, video game pioneer and co-founder of Atari, to talk about when he first met co-founder Nolan Bushnell (2:30), breaking into a world dominated by pinball machines (6:30), making Pong (9:00), taking it to a bar (12:00), starting a manufacturing company (14:30), hiring hippies to work in a former roller rink (18:30), when copycats emerged (22:00), almost going bust (25:50), creating the first mass-market home console (28:45), striking a deal with Sears (30:30), building a company of young people (36:30), the hot tub announcement (40:10), why they sold to Warner (44:30), the culture clash (47:30), obsoleting their own products (52:00), hiring Steve Jobs (55:10), funding his trip to India (58:00), turning down Jobs’ offer to invest in Apple (1:00:00), and how Silicon Valley culture has changed (1:03:15) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
20 Dec 20191h 8min
Tulip's Tom Harries: "Ashes to airmail"
The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Tom Harries, founder of Tulip, to talk about disrupting the cremation industry (0:30), starting with an obituary app (2:20), selling it and selling Tulip (3:45), what’s wrong with funerals (6:00), the fragmented death market (9:00), sending ashes through the post (11:45), cremating 10,000 people in two years (14:00), scaling from 5 to 95 people (17:40), hiring a professional chief executive then quickly selling (21:00), losing control of his baby (25:00), spreading the word online (28:30), the lows of starting a business (30:50), making mistakes (32:30), being a non-technical founder (34:20), why bring in a CEO went wrong (35:50), and raising $10 million (41:00). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
20 Dec 201946min
Openwater's Mary Lou Jepson: "Telepathy is inevitable"
The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Mary Lou Jepsen, founder of Openwater, to talk about how her near-death experience (3:05), and how it inspired her to start Openwater (5:50), developing a way to see inside our bodies (9:00) how it works (12:30), telepathy (19:45), the brain as the last bastion of privacy (24:20), the future of depression (26:40), the death of language (31:10), the brain as the final frontier (333:55), why she is so open about the issues this technology conjures (38:30), the problem with MRI’s (43:10), and why decoding the brain is inevitable (51:50). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
13 Dec 201958min
Pinscreen's Hao Li: "Deepfakes have been democratised
The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Hao Li, the world’s top deepfake artist and founder of Pinscreen, to talk about the role of the Fast and Furious in the rise of deepfakes (3:30), spending millions to do create a digital replica of Paul Walker (7:00), creating a deepfake for free in a few days (10:30), the democratisation of deepfakes (15:30), the end of trust (21:00), how the Pentagon is getting involved (23:15), overcoming the uncanny valley problem (25:00), why all you need is a comuputer (28:00), and why detection tools are imperfect (32:00), Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
6 Dec 201933min
