Azeem Azhar's Exponential View

The Coming AI Hackers

09 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

AI hackers are coming, and it’s not just our computer networks at risk – our laws and regulations are also vulnerable. Bruce Schneier, internation...

Banking without Banks: Decentralized Finance is Coming

02 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Could we have a financial industry without banks or brokers? That’s the vision of decentralized finance – or DeFi – in which financial products ...

AI’s Competitive Advantage

26 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

AI can offer a new type of competitive advantage, but entrepreneurs need to know what it is and how to unlock it. Ash Fontana, author of The AI First ...

Building a Trustworthy Market for Carbon Offsets: Part 2

20 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Using forests to offset a company’s carbon emissions has been dismissed as “greenwashing.” But Diego Saez Gil argues that a verifiable and trans...

Building a Trustworthy Market for Carbon Offsets: Part 1

19 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How do we build a market for carbon offsets that is both trustworthy and effective? Diego Saez Gil, co-founder and CEO of Pachama, believes he has the...

The Power of Mental Modeling and the Limits of AI

12 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Kenneth Cukier, senior editor at the Economist, and Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger, professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at the University of Ox...

Startups and the State: Growing French Tech

05 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In less than a decade France has gone from tech backwater to the startup engine of the EU. It recently celebrated its 12th company to achieve a $1 bil...

How Data Helps Companies Honor Their Climate Goals

28 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Turning a corporate climate pledge into reality is a complex endeavor. Watershed, a software startup co-founded by Christian Anderson, is committed to...

The Future of Meat

21 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Livestock is responsible for 15 percent of global greenhouse emissions. Could meat grown in labs offer a sustainable – and palatable – future? Did...

Mapping AI’s Societal Impact

14 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

AI is not just code and algorithms. It’s an industry built on a global network of resource extraction, human labor, and data collection. Kate Crawfo...

Making Quantum Computers a Commercial Reality

07 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

IonQ is the first company solely focused on quantum computing to go public, with its quantum computers accessible via the cloud today. The company’s...

Bitcoin and the Future of Decentralized Finance

31 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Meltem Demirors, Chief Strategy Officer at CoinShares, joins Azeem Azhar to explore the potential and politics of cryptocurrencies: from the ideologic...

The Evolution of Teamwork (with Atlassian CEO Scott Farquhar)

24 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Atlassian, the enterprise software innovator, is helping to drive disruption across the world of work. Co-founder and co-CEO, Scott Farquhar, joins Az...

The Architects of AI

17 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Cade Metz, technology correspondent at The New York Times, joins Azeem Azhar to discuss his new book Genius Makers. In it, he tells the story of the p...

Universities and the Innovation Landscape

10 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What are universities for? Are they an elite pipeline for elite jobs, or can they meet the needs of societies transforming amid technological advances...

Engineering a Driverless Future

03 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Chris Urmson, co-founder and CEO of the self-driving technology startup Aurora, joins Azeem Azhar to explore the state-of-play of self-driving technol...

Fixing the Social Media Crisis

24 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Social networks polarize communities and spread misinformation. Professor Sinan Aral, director of MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy and author...

Investing in Deep Tech for an Abundant Future

17 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Could deep tech companies bring about an age of abundance? Matt Ocko, co-founder and managing partner of Data Collective Venture Capital, joins Azeem ...

From Insurance Giant to Tech Platform: The Story of Ping An

10 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

From an insurance giant to an incubator of cutting-edge tech companies, Ping An’s evolution is impressive and unique. Chief Innovation Officer Jonat...

Building A Quantum Computer with Light

03 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

“Quantum computing is to conventional computing what a warp drive is to a bicycle,” says Jeremy O’Brien, CEO of PsiQuantum. He joins Azeem Azhar...

Bringing DARPA’s Innovation to Health

27 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Regina Dugan, CEO of new biomedical non-profit Wellcome Leap and former director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the U.S.,...

Big Tech and a Decade of Antitrust with Cory Doctorow

06 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Cory Doctorow, award-winning author, technologist, and founder, joins Azeem Azhar to explore the power of big tech monopolies and how a future wave of...

Learning from 2020: Azeem’s Takeaways

30 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In his reflection on this tumultuous year, Azeem Azhar finds hope in our reaction to the pandemic. The achievements made through collective action and...

Applying the Pandemic Mindset to Climate Change with Cory Doctorow

23 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Cory Doctorow, award winning author, technologist, and founder, joins Azeem Azhar to examine how the pandemic mindset around harnessing massive collec...

Making Venture Capital Work for Entrepreneurs

16 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Leila Rastegar Zegna, co-founder and general partner of Kindred Capital, joins Azeem Azhar for a deep dive into venture capital: how it really works, ...

IKEA: Making a $40 Billion Company Climate Positive

09 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

IKEA generates 0.1 percent of the world’s annual greenhouse gas emissions. Can this $40 billion multinational company become climate positive by 203...

China’s Technology Transformation with Kai-Fu Lee

02 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

“China is no longer a copycat. It’s an innovator,” says Kai-Fu Lee, CEO of Sinovation Ventures and former president of Google China. He joins Az...

How AI and Genomics Are Reshaping Farming

11 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

As the world population grows and climate change intensifies, how can we transform the food supply chain to be more sustainable and resilient? Mike Ze...

Understanding the Enduring Consequences of Covid-19

09 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Azeem Azhar speaks with Yale Professor of Social and Natural Science, Internal Medicine & Biomedical Engineering, Nicholas Christakis, whose latest bo...

Should We End the Data Economy?

04 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Google and Facebook became multibillion-dollar juggernauts by stockpiling data and using it to sell advertising. Governments can now track their citiz...

Facebook’s Tech Chief: How We Built It and Where We’re Going

28 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

When Facebook’s Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer joined the company in 2008, it was about to hit 100 million users – today they serve 2.7 ...

DeepMind’s Journey from Games to Fundamental Science

21 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Demis Hassabis, CEO and co-founder of DeepMind, dreams of using AI to solve fundamental problems in science. He joins Azeem Azhar to explore his own j...

How Taiwan is Using Technology to Foster Democracy (with Digital Minister Audrey Tang)

14 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

“Democracy is a technology. Like any […] technology, it gets better when more people strive to improve it,” says Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s first d...

How GPT-3 Is Shaping Our AI Future

07 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

OpenAI stunned the world with the release of Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 (GPT-3), the world’s most impressive language-generating AI. Ope...

Season 4 Finale: Azeem’s Favorite Episodes and Trends to Watch

01 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

As we wrap up the season and head off to a short summer break, Azeem Azhar reflects on what he learned from his conversations with technology and busi...

Reimagining Capitalism for a Broken World

24 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

More than half of the world’s population believe capitalism is doing more harm than good. But is it beyond repair, or can it be fixed from within? H...

Engineering Biology: The Next Frontier

17 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The increasing capabilities of computing have changed biology from a realm dominated by scientific discovery to one that intersects with engineering a...

Rethinking the Innovation Ecosystem

10 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Starting a company with a stranger is not the traditional path for many entrepreneurs, but this is one of the basic principles of Entrepreneur First (...

Using AI to Decentralize Organizations

03 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Operating a company with no managers, where everyone chooses their work, salary, and holiday entitlement may sound like chaos. But Daniel Hulme, CEO o...

Empowering Workers in the Digital Future

27 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Companies increasingly use digital systems to hire, fire, and monitor their employees. But who is keeping employers in check? Former director at the s...

Building Better Cities After Covid-19

20 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Cities drive prosperity. But during the Covid-19 pandemic, they also have become crucibles of disease. Sameh Wahba, the World Bank’s Global Director...

Fei-Fei Li’s Mission to Transform Healthcare AI

13 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

After ImageNet transformed AI vision, superstar Stanford computer science professor Fei-Fei Li has turned her attention to advancing healthcare. Fei-F...

How Nasdaq is Growing the World’s Digital Marketplace

06 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Nasdaq has evolved from being the world’s first digital marketplace to a global technology company. CEO Adena Friedman joins Azeem Azhar to discuss ...

The Digital Future of the Supply Chain

29 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Global supply chains are efficient, but fragile. How can we make them more robust, flexible, and sustainable? Pamela Mar, EVP for Knowledge and Applic...

Lessons for an Aging World

27 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

For the first time in history, there are more people on the planet over 65 years old, than under five. How do we adapt to this demographic transformat...

The New Science of Aging

22 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

We have long assumed aging is inevitable, but is it? Professor David Sinclair, founder of the Sinclair Lab at Harvard’s Medical School and author of...

Navigating Covid-19 in a Digital Republic (with President of Estonia Kersti Kaljulaid)

20 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Estonia, the only public service not available online is marriage. Dubbed the “digital republic”, Estonia has the most advanced e-government in...

The Drive to Decarbonize

15 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Clean energy is now cheaper than coal, and its uptake is accelerating. But can we get to zero emissions in time? Investor and technologist Ramez Naam ...

Inside Alphabet’s X: Nurturing Radical Creativity

08 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

X, Alphabet Inc.’s “moonshot factory,” dares to solve big problems with breakthrough technologies. Most of their projects fail. But some — lik...

The Next Trillion-Dollar Market

01 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Biotech is gathering pace: AI systems are simulating novel materials, new genomic technologies are enabling precision bioengineering, and automation i...

Technology Companies and the New Recession

30 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The world is facing an economic crisis never seen before, says equity analyst Pierre Ferragu. Consumer demand remains strong and supply infrastructure...

Science Fights the Coronavirus

24 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The exponential growth of COVID-19 is threatening to bring down the world economy. To understand the pandemic, Azeem Azhar chats with professor Yaneer...

The Redecentralized Web

18 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Data monopolies and abuses of privacy are only some of the flaws of Web 2.0. Muneeb Ali, co-founder and CEO of Blockstack, tells Azeem Azhar how the e...

Welfare in the Exponential Age

11 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Existing social institutions are not adequate to meet the challenges of the exponential age. Social entrepreneur and author, Hilary Cottam, proposes a...

How Humans Judge Machines

04 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

“People judge humans by their intentions, and machines by the outcome,” says physicist and author Cesar Hidalgo. He is one of the creators of the ...

Can Airtable Democratize Software Development?

26 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Airtable, valued at $1.1 billion, is carving out a new product category that could compete with cloud computing in value. The founder of Airtable, How...

Geopolitics, Technology, and Risk

19 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Some would argue that the world is more volatile today than it was during the Cold War, and technology is catalyzing a number of fundamental changes t...

Surviving a Crisis During the Techlash

12 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Crisis management is not only about cleaning up after a disaster, but also about establishing a healthy company culture. Judy Smith, renowned crisis m...

Leading a Technology Giant During the Techlash

05 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, argues for multilateral cooperation across borders and sectors in order to advance the regulatory framework for t...

Superintelligence Already Rules the World

22 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Artificial decision-making machines have been with us for hundreds of years. We call them corporations and states, and they have hugely accelerated th...

Building Unicorns in Europe

18 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Seedcamp has backed close to 400 European startups at the seed stage. The fund’s co-founder and managing partner Reshma Sohoni joins Azeem Azhar to ...

The State of Nanotechnology

11 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Nanotechnology has long been hailed as a means of eradicating diseases and delivering other healthcare solutions. University of Oxford professor Sonia...

Cybersecurity in the Age of AI

04 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

AI is reshaping the landscape of cyber defense. As new security fissures open up, threat analysts deploy more powerful tools to prevent and respond to...

Growth and the Energy Transition with Vaclav Smil

27 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

For the first time in history, we have to tackle a truly global problem: climate breakdown. Energy transition away from fossil fuels is imperative, bu...

AI, Accountability, and Power

20 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In November 2018 mass protests by Google workers drew attention to deep problems with bias and discrimination at some of the largest Silicon Valley co...

Technology and the New World of Work

13 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The nature of work is undergoing tremendous changes, influenced by aging populations, the digital revolution, and a paradigm shift away from Fordism. ...

How Free-Market Economists Got It Wrong

06 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The late 1960s saw a revolution in public policy, as economists began to play an important role in shaping politics. On the wings of ideas popularized...

Beyond Deep Learning with Gary Marcus

30 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Gary Marcus is well known as a deep learning critic. A neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and the author of “Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligen...

AI and the Future of Warfare

23 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In our rapidly changing world, peace is increasingly fragile. The only way to ensure we keep it and foster it around the world is to educate citizens ...

Bubbles, Golden Ages, and Tech Revolutions

16 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

How do we exploit the technological revolution for green growth and global development? Celebrated economist, author, and scholar, Carlota Perez joins...

Creating an AI-First Business with Andrew Ng

09 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Artificial General Intelligence won’t be with us for at least another 100 years, but former Baidu chief scientist and Google Brain cofounder Andrew ...

Tony Blair: Governing in the Age of AI

02 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

If the UK’s former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was in the government today, he says that he would mobilize his whole office around the technology re...

Introducing Season 4

25 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the new season of the Exponential View podcast, Azeem Azhar speaks to an eclectic group of leaders in technology, business, politics, economics, an...

Engineering Biology

14 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Engineering biology holds the key to improving the lives of people across the world. It promises solutions to disease, food production, and pollution ...

Governance in the Age of AI

14 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Artificial intelligence is a powerful technology with capabilities that are open to use by state and non-state actors. In this conversation Azeem Azha...

Disrupting the Insurance Industry with AI

14 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

“At a fundamental level, insurance is a social good. It’s about a community of people pooling their resources to help the weakest members in their...

Beneficial Artificial Intelligence

26 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 2015, computer scientist and AI pioneer, Stuart Russell, became the first signatory of an open letter calling on researchers to ensure “that incr...

Surveillance Capitalism

19 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Shoshana Zuboff coined the term “surveillance capitalism” to describe the new way companies claim private human experience as products. Shoshana j...

AI’s Near Future

12 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

For Jürgen Schmidhuber, a recognized pioneer in AI, artificial intelligence is much more than another technological revolution. He sees it as the opp...

The Autonomous Economy

05 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

One of the founders of complexity economics, W. Brian Arthur, joins Azeem Azhar to discuss how artificial intelligence is ushering us into the age of ...

Disrupting Finance

29 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Artificial intelligence is unlocking new value in the banking and finance industry, but incumbents are struggling to keep pace. Azeem Azhar discusses ...

Embedding AI in Business

22 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

AI is the fastest-growing industry that Accenture’s CTIO Paul Daugherty has ever experienced. He joins Azeem Azhar to discuss how AI can help busine...

The Truth About Autonomy

15 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Director of the Humans and Autonomy Lab at Duke University and one of the first female fighter pilots, professor Missy Cummings debates the current st...

AI and the Genetic Revolution

08 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Michigan State University senior vice president Stephen Hsu, a theoretical physicist and the founder of Genomic Prediction, demonstrates how the machi...

When AI Meets Medicine

01 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

With healthcare under extreme commercial and political pressure, the doctor-patient relationship is at a low point — and risks further deterioration...

The Innovation Economy

24 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

“We haven’t really understood the power of the state,” argues economist Mariana Mazzucato, warning that this has impacted the rising inequality ...

Creating the Data Economy

17 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Our society has become increasingly reliant on data, but its value is not accessible to all. Of the 16 billion terabytes of data created globally in 2...

Designing Responsible AI

10 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

“Intelligence is central to everything humans do, and artificial intelligence should be no exception.” With these words, Joanna Bryson urges for s...

Investing in Disruptive Innovation

03 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the late 1800’s, three innovation platforms shaped the world as we know it today: the telephone, electricity, and the internal combustion engine....

Technology Diffusion and the Rise of Asia

06 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Parag Khanna is a leading international relations expert and the author of The Future Is Asian: Commerce, Conflict and Culture in the 21st Century. Az...

Overcoming the Epistemic Crisis

30 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Elif Shafak is an award-winning British-Turkish author and human rights activist. She has published 16 books, 10 of which are novels. The New York Rev...

Regulating the Cyberspace

23 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Marietje Schaake is a Dutch politician and member of the European Parliament (MEP) from the Netherlands. The Wall Street Journal called her “Europe’...

Making Sense of the Data-Rich World with Graph Databases

16 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Emil Eifrem is the CEO and cofounder of Neo4j, the graph database platform powering some of the largest companies today. Emil is the creator of the pr...

The State of Artificial Intelligence

26 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Jack Clark serves as the policy director at OpenAI. He has contributed to the development of the AI Index, an AI forecasting and progress initiative t...

Quantified Self, Data Ownership, and the Sociological Approach to Technology

19 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Gina Neff is a senior research fellow and associate professor at the University of Oxford. She studies innovation, the digital transformation of indus...

Renewable Energy, Climate Change, and Technology

13 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Michael Liebreich is a leading global expert on clean energy and transportation, smart infrastructure, technology, climate finance, and sustainable de...

Diplomacy in the Tech Age

06 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Casper Klynge is the world’s first tech ambassador, with a global mandate and staff in Copenhagen, Silicon Valley, and Beijing. His appointment as t...

Doughnut Economics, Rethinking Economics for the 21st Century

28 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Kate Raworth is a senior visiting research associate at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, where she teaches environmental change a...

Space Innovation and Fixing the Earth

21 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Anousheh Ansari is the world’s first female private space explorer and the first Iranian astronaut in space. She is the CEO of XPrize Foundation, an...

The Future of Public Service and Governance

14 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Lisa Witter is an award-winning executive, a serial entrepreneur, and the cofounder and executive chairman of Apolitical, a network that helps public ...