Big Technology Podcast
Episodes
Getting AI To Think And Learn Like Humans — With Daniel Kahneman and Yann LeCun
08 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel Kahneman is a Nobel prize-winning psychologist and economist and author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, a landmark book that decodes human decision...
Managing Omicron With Data From Wastewater? — With Newsha Ghaeli and Mariana Matus of Biobot Analytics
01 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As companies head back to the office, and communities try to figure out the right Covid mitigation measures, data from sewage can help them get it rig...
Inflation and The Great Resignation — With SoFi Head of Investment Strategy Liz Young and Margins’ Ranjan Roy
24 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Inflation is skyrocketing and everyone’s quitting their jobs. What does it mean? Liz Young, the head of Investment Strategy at SoFi, and Ranjan Roy,...
Inside Spotify's War With Apple — With Spotify Chief Legal Officer Horacio Gutierrez
17 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Horacio Gutierrez is Spotify's head of global affairs and chief legal officer. He's a relentless critic of the way Apple treats smaller companies, tes...
The Venture Capitalist Who Can't Lose — With Zach Coelius
10 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Zach Coelius is the managing partner of Coelius Capital. He's participating in an unprecedented moment where venture capitalists like him simply can't...
The Motivations of Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen — With Her Lawyer Lawrence Lessig
03 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Lawrence Lessig is Frances Haguen's lawyer and a Harvard Law School professor. He joins Big Technology Podcast to address the various questions about ...
Are We Having a Moral Panic About Instagram? — With NYT's Farhad Manjoo
27 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Farhad Manjoo is an opinion columnist for the New York Times. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss whether the criticism of Instagram's impact o...
Amazon Rigs Search, Social Media 'Ampliganda,' Netflix Protests — With Adrianne Jeffries, Renee DiResta, and Zoë Schiffer
20 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Join us for a 'mega' episode with three guests! The Markup investigative reporter Adrianne Jeffries leads off with a discussion of Amazon's self-prefe...
Is Social Media A Scapegoat For Bigger Problems? — With Charlie Warzel at Unfinished Live
13 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Charlie Warzel writes the Galaxy Brain newsletter on Substack, a publication he started after a career at The New York Times and BuzzFeed. Warzel join...
Why Facebook Will Keep Building For Kids — With Michael Sayman
06 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Sayman was 16 years old when Facebook recruited him to join the company. The overture arrived as he was sitting in math class, and the teacher...
Amazon Builds a Robot and Threatens Apple — With Wired's Lauren Goode
30 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Wired senior writer Lauren Goode was on hand this week as Amazon introduced Astro, a home robot, and a Ring home-monitoring drone. Goode joins Big Tec...
Unraveling The Mystery Of Peter Thiel — With Max Chafkin
22 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Max Chafkin is the author of The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power, which debuts this week. The book is a fascinating, ins...
A Look Into Facebook's Soul — With WSJ's Jeff Horwitz and Ex-FB Exec. Brian Boland
18 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jeff Horwitz is the Wall Street Journal reporter who unearthed a trove of internal Facebook documents that reveal a damning disconnect between what th...
Inside The Theranos Trial — With Erin Griffith of The New York Times
15 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Erin Griffith is the New York Times reporter at the trial for Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. She joins Big Technology Podcast to bring us inside t...
How The Music Industry Predicts The Future — With Zack O'Malley Greenburg
08 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Zack O'Malley Greenburg is a music journalist who's spent time with everyone from Katy Perry to Kanye West. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss...
The Platform Delusion — With Columbia Business Professor Jonathan Knee
02 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Knee is a professor at Columbia Business School and senior advisor at the investment bank Evercore. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discus...
Are We Actually Addicted To Our Phones? — With Nir Eyal
26 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Nir Eyal is the bestselling author of Hooked and Indistractable. He joins Big Technology Podcast for a spirited debate over whether we're actually add...
Can We Still Be Optimistic About The Internet? — With Meetup Founder Scott Heiferman
18 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Scott Heiferman is the founder of Meetup, a website that connects people online and gets them to meet each other offline. Heiferman joins Big Technolo...
The Motivations Of Facebook Reporters, And Their Sources — With Ugly Truth Author Sheera Frenkel
11 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Sheera Frenkel is a New York Times reporter and author of the best-selling book, An Ugly Truth. She joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss her hit bo...
The Risks of TikTok's Rise — With Bloomberg's Shelly Banjo
04 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Shelly Banjo is Bloomberg's New York Bureau Chief. She's also the host of Foundering, a podcast mini-series that documents TikTok's rise. Banjo joins ...
Regime Change In Cuba, Through Internet Access? — With FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr
28 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr wants to provide internet access to the people in Cuba so they can document and share the abuses of their government wit...
The Definitive WeWork Story — With Eliot Brown And Maureen Farrell
21 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Eliot Brown And Maureen Farrell are the authors of The Cult of We: WeWork and the Great Start-Up Delusion. The new book digs into the rise and fall o...
Newsletters and The Culture Wars — With Substack CEO Chris Best
14 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Chris Best is the CEO of Substack, an email newsletter platform that lets writers send newsletters and charge subscribers a monthly fee. The platform ...
She Advocated For Women, Then Microsoft Pushed Her Off Its Board — With Maria Klawe
07 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
“Are you trying to fucking destroy the company?” That’s what Bill Gates told Microsoft board member Maria Klawe when she asked why Microsoft wou...
How Gen Z Dates Online — With Tinder CEO Jim Lanzone
30 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jim Lanzone is the CEO of Tinder. He took over the world’s most popular dating app last summer, in the heart of the pandemic, and is starting to evo...
How Big Tech Influence Shops Shape The Antitrust Conversation In Washington — with Adam Kovacevich
24 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Adam Kovacevich is the CEO of the Big Tech-funded Chamber of Progress. The former Google policy executive joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss the ...
Crossover With The Realignment: Can Tech Survive Washington’s Onslaught?
22 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Marshall Kosloff and Saagar Enjeti host The Realignment, an excellent podcast about politics and tech in our fast-changing world. I joined the show h...
Andrew Ross Sorkin on Meme Stocks, Bitcoin, SPACs, and Elon Musk
16 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Ross Sorkin is the co-anchor of Squawk Box on CNBC, founder and editor of Dealbook at the New York Times, and the author of Too Big To Fail. He...
Andrew Callaghan of All Gas No Breaks Goes Independent
09 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Callaghan is the force behind All Gas No Breaks, a hit YouTube show that featured Callaghan putting a mic in front of people and just... lettin...
The Rise and Fall of Juul, With The Devil's Playbook Author Lauren Etter
02 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
You've heard this story before: Two Stanford kids take on a big bad industry, one that harms people, and they disrupt it. Typically, these stories are...
New York Times Reporter Jack Nicas On Apple Vs. Epic Games and Apple In China
26 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jack Nicas joins Big Technology Podcast fresh out of the Epic v. Apple trial, where the Fortnight maker is suing Apple over the 30% cut it takes out o...
Professor Scott Galloway On Whether Our Economy Is Rigged (And What To Do About It)
19 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Scott Galloway swings by to discuss how our economy can at once feel rigged yet loaded with opportunity. Galloway describes a “tilted” s...
Amazon Unbound Author Brad Stone On How Nerdy Bezos Turned Into Ripped Bezos
12 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Brad Stone is the author of Amazon Unbound, a new book about the inner workings of Amazon, which releases this week. Stone joins Big Technology Podcas...
Why Ex-Google Ads Boss Sridhar Ramaswamy is Building An Ads-Free Search Engine
06 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Sridhar Ramaswamy is CEO of Neeva, an ads-free search engine he helped found after running Google's ads and commerce business. Ramaswamy spent sevente...
Facebook Oversight Board Member Julie Owono Takes Us Inside The Trump Decision
05 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Julie Owono is a member of the Facebook Oversight Board, which today announced it's leaving Donald Trump's indefinite suspension in place. Owono joins...
Doge, Bitcoin, NFTs, and Capital Gains: Ranjan Roy and Can Duruk of Margins Demystify Our Economy
28 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today's economy is a wild ride, and it's time to demystify it with Ranjan Roy and Can Duruk from Margins. Consider the following: Doge, a joke cryptoc...
Facebook vs. Clubhouse vs. Spotify vs. Apple: Casey Newton Returns
21 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Platformer's Casey Newton returns to Big Technology Podcast to discuss the intensifying battle among Facebook, Clubhouse, Spotify, Apple, and Twitter ...
How Amazon Automated My Job: A Conversation With Elaine Kwon
14 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Elaine Kwon was a vendor manager in Amazon's retail organization when the company started to turn her tasks over to machine learning in a program call...
The Uneasy Amazon Coalition, With Fulfillment Author Alec MacGillis
07 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
ProPublica senior reporter Alec MacGillis highlights the growing economic divide in the U.S. — through the lens of Amazon — in his new book, Fulfi...
Carole Cadwalladr and Yael Eisenstat on The Criticism of Tech Criticism
31 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Carole Cadwalladr and Yael Eisenstat are two of the most prominent Facebook critics worldwide. Cadwalladr is the journalist who broke open the Cambrid...
BuzzFeed News executive editor Mat Honan on the "Zoom Class," NFTs, and San Francisco
24 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
BuzzFeed News executive editor Mat Honan has long covered the way society interacts with technology. He joins Big Technology Podcast this week to disc...
Why Rest of World wants to change international tech news, with Sophie Schmidt and Louise Matsakis
17 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Rest Of World is a new publication that covers technology outside of North America and Europe. Sophie Schmidt and Louise Matsakis join Big Technology ...
Bonus: Senator Amy Klobuchar On How Congress Will Take On Big Tech
13 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Senator Amy Klobuchar will be leading the charge in Congress as the legislature interrogates the power of big tech, and potentially takes action to re...
Twitter Product Head Kayvon Beykpour On The Story Behind Twitter’s Revival
10 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kayvon Beykpour is one of Silicon Valley’s busiest product executives. As Twitter’s head of product, he’s survived for years in a formerly-curse...
Will Artificial Intelligence Take Our Jobs? A Conversation with Kevin Roose, NYT Columnist and Futureproof author
09 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Artificial intelligence may take our jobs, or it may give us new freedom in the workplace. The debate is heating up as this technology is starting to ...
WhatsApp Head Will Cathcart on Privacy, Content Moderation, and Apple
03 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Will Cathcart runs WhatsApp, the 2 billion user app that's the de facto tool for messaging and calling for many across the globe. Cathcart joins Big T...
Arab Spring Leader Wael Ghonim on Modern Social Media's Promise And Peril
24 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 2011, Wael Ghonim created a Facebook page that sparked the overthrow of the Egyptian regime. Since then, the former Google marketing director has k...
Three Mayors On The Future Of Tech in the U.S.
16 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami, Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway of Madison, and Mayor Steve Adler of Austin join Big Technology Podcast to discuss the future...
Bonus: India vs. Twitter, with Pranav Dixit of BuzzFeed News
13 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In India, the Narendra Modi government is threatening to put Twitter officials in jail unless they block approximately 250 accounts of people they don...
Will Amazon Be Kinder After Jeff Bezos? A Conversation With Recode's Jason Del Rey
10 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jeff Bezos is headed for the door at Amazon, and because 2021 is the craziest news year on record, we mostly haven’t stopped to consider this seismi...
Glenn Greenwald on Substack, Content Moderation, and Joe Rogan
03 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In January, I wrote a story for OneZero about the content moderation war in store for smaller social platforms like Clubhouse, Spotify, and Substack. ...
Emergency Podcast: The Story Behind Gamestop, A Conversation With Ranjan Roy of Margins
29 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ranjan Roy has documented the fundamental issues driving today's market volatility, from Zero Interest Rate Policy to the rise of Robinhood. He joins ...
The U.S. and Tech After Trump: A Conversation With the Realignment's Marshall Kosloff and Saagar Enjeti
27 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Marshall Kosloff and Saagar Enjeti, hosts of the hit podcast The Realignment, speak about the shifting state of U.S. politics on their show each week....
Under Biden, Bipartisan Vengeance On Social Media? A Conversation With Bradley Tusk
20 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As Joe Biden takes office, big tech’s rough and tumble four years under Donald Trump will not come to an end. Democrats and Republicans, each for th...
Should Facebook and Twitter Have Banned Donald Trump? A Conversation With Ryan Mac of BuzzFeed News
13 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past week, both Facebook and Twitter suspended President Donald Trump’s account. These companies don’t take such aggressive action lightl...
Does YouTube Radicalize? A Debate Between NYT's Kevin Roose and Software Engineer Mark Ledwich
06 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In June 2019, New York Times reporter Kevin Roose wrote The Making of a YouTube Radical, a story about how a 26-year-old man, Caleb Cain, was radicali...
Cult Deprogrammer Rick Alan Ross On NXIVM, QAnon, and What Makes Us Vulnerable
23 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Community as we know it is in a state of decline. People today have fewer friendships than ever, they are lonelier than ever, and religious participat...
Peloton Instructor Emma Lovewell on At-Home Fitness and Stadium-Sized Rides
16 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
With the pandemic forcing people to stay home for nearly 10 months now, many have turned to interactive fitness companies, such as Peloton, to stay ac...
Gary Vaynerchuk and TikTok’s Blake Chandlee on the ‘Ban’ and TikTok’s Future
09 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
TikTok is in a state of limbo as the U.S. government decides whether to ban it. In August, President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning th...
Ex-Uber Chief Business Officer Emil Michael on Autonomous Driving, Saudi Arabia, and Uber’s Culture
02 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Uber is facing a difficult moment amid the coronavirus pandemic. The service, built on the belief that people would forsake car ownership in favor of ...
Will the Government Break Up Instagram and Facebook? A Conversation With ‘No Filter’ Author Sarah Frier
25 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Federal Trade Commission is preparing an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, and Instagram is in its sights. The agency is poised to revisit Faceb...
Investor, Activist Swati Mylavarapu: Tech World Must “Get Uncomfortable” With Its Impact On Society
18 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Swati Mylavarapu is a tech investor and activist who spent $2 million in the 2020 election cycle on Democratic causes, in partnership with her husband...
Homebrew VC Hunter Walk Talks Twitter, TikTok, and Tech in the Time of Biden
11 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
During Donald Trump’s presidency, tech products became explicitly political. Operatives from both sides picked apart their algorithms and features, ...
Election Results Breakdown With The Daily Beast Editor In Chief Noah Shachtman
04 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As the election results come in, Noah Shachtman, the editor in chief of The Daily Beast, joins the Big Technology Podcast for an 'Emergency' show to d...
Lincoln Project Co-Founder Steve Schmidt: “The Pro-Democracy Side Of This Argument Cannot Be Gentle”
28 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When Steve Schmidt was a senior advisor on John McCain’s campaign in 2008, Twitter was a curiosity. Now, he and a number of former Republican establ...
Google Protest Leader Meredith Whittaker on the Future of Tech Activism and the Deep Flaws of ‘The Social Dilemma’
21 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When I interviewed Tristan Harris about The Social Dilemma earlier this month, my mentions filled with people saying, "You should speak to the people ...
Emergency Podcast: Department of Justice vs. Google with Yelp's Luther Lowe
20 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The U.S. Department of Justice filed suit against Google on Tuesday, alleging the company unlawfully maintained a monopoly in search and search advert...
New York Times’ Ben Smith Talks Slack, Newsroom Politics, And Tech Regulation
14 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As the Media Equation columnist at The New York Times, Ben Smith is covering an industry going through transformation and turbulence. And as the forme...
Netflix's 'Social Dilemma' Star Tristan Harris on the Film and Its Criticisms
07 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
You won’t find a more controversial film in Silicon Valley than The Social Dilemma. The film, now available on Netflix, features confessions from ea...
Reporter Roundtable: Discussing Media Narratives and Tech Industry Attacks On The Press
30 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When the Big Technology Podcast debuted last month, The Verge’s Casey Newton joined to talk about why people can’t stand the tech press. Our wide-...
Why Venture Capitalists Are Mad, With Bloomberg Beta Venture Capitalist Roy Bahat
23 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Venture capitalists, founders, and others in the tech industry are feeling pretty raw these days. Once admired as upstarts fighting the status quo, th...
An Inside Look At China’s Internment of Muslims, with BuzzFeed News’ Megha Rajagopalan
16 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
China’s mass internment of Muslims in its Xinjiang region is one of the world's most under-covered stories The country has detained one million peop...
Apple At A Crossroads: An Interview With GV Partner M.G. Siegler
09 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For years, Apple had a clear identity: It was the world’s best devices maker. Today, the company is trying to balance that identity with a new empha...
Box CEO Aaron Levie on Trump, the Tech Giants, and the Stock Market
02 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As the pandemic flattens much of the U.S. economy, many technology firms are doing just fine. Business is moving online, and they’re well positioned...
“It Just Felt Wrong.” Ex-Amazon VP Tim Bray On Why He Left
26 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In May, Amazon VP and distinguished engineer Tim Bray said he was leaving the company. Amazon had just fired employees who spoke out against its worki...
Is the Tech Press Bad? With The Verge's Casey Newton
19 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Verge's Casey Newton writes The Interface, a daily newsletter about social media and democracy. He joins the podcast to talk about the tech press,...
From Gezi Park to Black Lives Matter, with Zeynep Tufekci
19 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Social media-fueled protests are a force to be reckoned with in politics today. Movements like Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring, and Black Lives Ma...
Introducing Big Technology Podcast with Alex Kantrowitz
09 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Here's a little preview of what's coming your way on the Big Technology Podcast. Don't miss the BTP, subscribe today! Learn more about your ad choices...