Bold Names
Episodes
Encore: This CEO Says Humanoid Robots Are The "Space Race" of Our Time
26 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Who will take care of you in old age? Jeff Cardenas, the CEO and co-founder of Apptronik, says the answer is robots. The startup founder set out to bu...
SPECIAL WSJ’s Take On the Week: How This Fed Hawk Views the Economy, Inflation, AI and Jobs
23 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As a special bonus, we’re bringing you an episode of WSJ’s Take On the Week. Co-host Telis Demos and guest host WSJ Chief Economics Correspondent ...
The Boldest Ideas of 2025 — And What’s in Store for 2026
19 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this special episode, Tim Higgins and Christopher Mims revisit some of their favorite moments from the first year of Bold Names. We look back on co...
Inside PlayStation's Plans to Lead a $200 Billion Industry
12 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Gaming is a $200 billion industry that dwarfs Hollywood — and PlayStation is at the center of it all. On this week’s episode of Bold Names, Sony ...
McLaren CEO Zak Brown On F1 And Business Strategy At 200 Miles Per Hour
05 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What business lessons are forged at 200 miles per hour? On this week’s Bold Names, McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown joins Christopher Mims and Tim Higgi...
SPECIAL WSJ Tech Live: The Man Leading Trump’s AI Charge Against China (The Journal Podcast)
28 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week, we’re bringing you an episode of The Journal, produced by Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. In this episode, recorded at WSJ’s Tech ...
Biden’s Antitrust Architect on How Big Tech Threatens U.S. Prosperity
21 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Are we becoming a nation mined for our money, data, and attention? Author and legal scholar Tim Wu certainly thinks so. A key architect of President J...
The World’s Tech Giants Are Running Out of Power. This CEO Plans to Deliver.
14 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Electricity demand is exploding, fueled by the rise of artificial intelligence and an unprecedented wave of data center construction. Some experts war...
How Uber Plans to Win the Self-Driving Car Race
07 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Driverless cars are no longer in the realm of science fiction. Nearly a decade after abandoning its own self-driving car unit, Uber is taking a hybrid...
Inside Visa’s Tech-Charged Future: From Crypto to AI
31 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Every second, tens of thousands of transactions cross Visa’s global network. Last year alone, the company processed more than $13 trillion in purcha...
This Tech Founder's $1.3 Billion Company Is Taking On Apple and Samsung
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Can a startup beat Apple and Samsung on their own turf? Carl Pei, the founder and CEO of Nothing, is betting on it. Growing up in Sweden, Pei was capt...
Why This Investor Says the AI Boom Isn’t the Next Dot-Com Crash
17 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The artificial intelligence boom has sparked one of the costliest building sprees in history. By 2028, investment in chips, servers and data centers c...
The Google Exec Reinventing Search in the AI Era
10 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Every day, billions of searches flow through Google, making it not just the world’s most popular search engine, but one of history’s most valuable...
Condoleezza Rice on Beating China in the Tech Race: 'Run Hard and Run Fast'
03 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Condoleezza Rice’s experience navigating geopolitical tensions and uncertainty gives her a background few people have. The former secretary of state...
The Google-Backed Startup Taking on Elon Musk in Humanoid Robotics
26 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Who will take care of you in old age? Jeff Cardenas, the CEO and co-founder of Apptronik, says the answer is robots. The startup founder set out to bu...
How the U.S. Stacks Up to China’s ‘Engineering State’
19 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The relationship between the U.S. and China is typically framed as competitive and even adversarial. Each superpower brings strengths and weaknesses t...
Why IBM's CEO Thinks His Company Can Crack Quantum Computing
12 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After spending much of the 2010s in the doldrums, IBM has made something of a comeback in the past five years under the leadership of CEO Arvind Krish...
Bold Names Is Back
05 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Every day, Wall Street Journal journalists talk with the most powerful, influential and interesting people. WSJ columnists Christopher Mims and Tim Hi...
From AI and Defense Tech, to Tariffs and the New Streaming Wars: The Best of Bold Names
29 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
WSJ’s Christopher Mims and Tim Higgins take a trip into the Bold Names podcast archives. They’ve covered everything from artificial intelligence a...
Space Trucks: One Startup’s Plan to Get the U.S. Back on the Moon
08 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Longtime space rivals Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are vying to reach outer space with their giant rockets. Meanwhile, an ecosystem of other space-related...
How Tubi Is Coming for Netflix and YouTube in the New Streaming Wars
01 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tubi is a free ad-supported streaming service that's gaining ground on big players like Netflix and Amazon. It has the largest content library of any ...
Are AI Agents the Future of Business? Salesforce Is Betting $8 Billion on It
25 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Informatica isn’t a household name, but it plays a crucial role in helping companies like Toyota and Unilever manage and organize vast amounts of da...
Encore: Could Amazon’s Zoox Beat Tesla and Waymo in the Robotaxi Race?
18 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With Elon Musk’s Tesla piloting its robotaxi service in Austin, Texas and Waymo expanding, it’s the perfect time to revisit our interview with Zoo...
Tariffs, EVs and China: A CEO Insider’s View of the Car Business
11 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For months, the complex global auto industry has grappled with the added challenge of navigating the Trump administration’s trade war. That gives Sw...
Why José Andrés Says We Need Leaders Who Believe in ‘Longer Tables’
09 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
José Andrés knows what it’s like to work under pressure. From managing the chaos of restaurant kitchens, to running a global business empire, to h...
How Microsoft’s AI Chief Defines ‘Humanist Super Intelligence’
02 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Few people developing artificial intelligence have as much experience in the field as Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman. He co-founded DeepMind, helpe...
Booz Allen CEO on Silicon Valley’s Turn to Defense Tech: ‘We Need Everybody.’
27 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Horacio Rozanski says he is obsessed with speed. As the CEO of Booz Allen Hamilton, a company that helps government agencies leverage the latest advan...
This CEO Says Global Trade Is Broken. What Comes Next?
23 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Evan Smith is the co-founder and CEO of Altana, one of a few companies that have a global view and insight into the world’s supply chains. Think Lin...
This Company Has a Plan to Beat Neuralink at the Brain-Computer Interface Game
16 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What if you could control computers with just a thought? Precision Neuroscience is one of several companies working to make that a reality. Michael Ma...
Venture Capitalist Sarah Guo’s Surprising Bet on Unsexy AI
09 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What's next for artificial intelligence beyond autonomous agents and next-gen language models? Sarah Guo, the founder of venture capital firm Convicti...
How Zipline’s Drones Are Taking Off in the U.S. and Rivaling Amazon
02 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After flying 100 million miles and making over 1.4 million deliveries using autonomous drones, Zipline CEO and co-founder Keller Rinaudo Cliffton is l...
70,000 Bets a Minute: How FanDuel’s Parent Is Winning at Sports Gambling
25 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Peter Jackson, the CEO of Flutter Entertainment, leads a global sports betting empire. With the U.S.-based FanDuel as its crown jewel, he has a prime ...
What This Former USAID Head Had to Say About Elon Musk and DOGE
18 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Rajiv Shah, president of the Rockefeller Foundation and former head of USAID, has spent his career on the frontlines of the fight against global pover...
Coming Soon: Bold Names Season Three
11 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Every day, Wall Street Journal reporters talk with the most powerful, influential and interesting people. On the next season of WSJ’s Bold Names pod...
‘Businesses Don’t Like Uncertainty’: How Cisco Is Navigating AI and Trump 2.0
21 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Few people sit at the nexus of business and politics like Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins. As head of a company that makes much of the infrastructure underlyi...
Could Amazon’s Zoox Beat Tesla and Waymo in the Robotaxi Race?
14 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Aicha Evans took over robotaxi startup Zoox from its founders in 2019, she made two big moves: selling the company to Amazon for over $1.2 billio...
Palmer Luckey's 'I Told You So' Tour: AI Weapons and Vindication
07 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Palmer Luckey, the founder of weapons manufacturer Anduril, was part of a minority in the tech sector that supported President Trump during his first ...
Humanoid Robot Startups Are Hot. This AI Expert Cuts Through the Hype.
28 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ayanna Howard is dean of The Ohio State University’s College of Engineering, an IEEE Senior Member, and a top expert on two of the most hyped fields...
Reid Hoffman Says AI Isn’t an ‘Arms Race,’ but America Needs to Win
21 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
LinkedIn co-founder and Silicon Valley venture capitalist Reid Hoffman is cautiously optimistic about the future of artificial intelligence. In his ne...
Why Bilt’s CEO Wants You To Pay Your Mortgage With a Credit Card
14 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Bilt Rewards founder and CEO Ankur Jain took inspiration from American Express’s rewards programs when his company began offering people loyalty poi...
Introducing: Bold Names
11 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Every day, Wall Street Journal reporters talk with the most powerful, influential and interesting people. Now, we’re bringing some of those conversa...
The CEO Who Says Cheaper AI Could Actually Mean More Jobs
11 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Cloud storage used to be a sleepy part of the computing world but, with artificial intelligence becoming cheaper than ever, the companies collecting a...
Why Elon Musk’s Battery Guy Is Betting Big on Recycling
11 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
JB Straubel was Elon Musk’s battery guy. Now he’s trying to turn what some see as trash into power for the electric vehicle revolution. Straubel w...
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and the AI ‘Fantasy Land’
11 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Marc Benioff is one of the most outspoken names in tech. The billionaire co-founder of customer relationship software company Salesforce has been pivo...
Why This Tesla Pioneer Says the Cheap EV Market 'Sucks'
11 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tesla, and its CEO Elon Musk, are the big names in electric vehicles, but a lot of competitors are nipping at their heels, including one led by a form...
An Update on The Future of Everything
31 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A brief message about some changes coming to The Future of Everything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nvidia’s Chips Power the Supercomputer That Could Change AI
24 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A few months ago, AI supercomputer Gefion was plugged in for the first time in a ceremony featuring the Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, the King of Denmark a...
Could Ultrasound Help Treat Addiction?
17 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The future of addiction treatment could be in treating the brain itself. A new trial at West Virginia University’s Rockefeller Neuroscience Institut...
How New Wearable Tech Targets Brain Waves for Better Sleep
10 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Do you have trouble falling asleep? If meditation apps and sleep trackers aren’t cutting it, now there’s technology designed to help users not onl...
Could Making a New Woolly Mammoth Help Human Health?
03 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Colossal Biosciences wants to create new animals that resemble extinct creatures like the woolly mammoth, thanks to advancements in genetic engineerin...
Science of Success: Who’s Winning the EV Market in 2025?
27 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Electric vehicle sales growthexperienced a slow down in 2 023 that continued into this year. Despite EV makers’ big bets on batteries, buyers seemed...
Designing the EV Soundscape of the Future
20 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Electric motors are silent but electric vehicles are not. They make noise for safety, branding and to enhance the driving experience. And since they a...
Driverless: Waymo and the Robotaxi Race—Under the Hood
15 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Waymo, the self-driving car startup owned by Google parent Alphabet, may be the front-runner in the race to lead the driverless car industry, but it’...
How New Motors Could Transform the EV Industry
13 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Electric vehicles are a big part of the green energy transition but some of their most critical components are made using rare-earth elements. These c...
Driverless: Waymo and the Robotaxi Race—Waymo Takes the Lead
08 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Fifteen years ago, Google made a big bet that future cars will drive themselves. Now, billions of dollars later, that bet may finally be paying off. W...
How Drones Are Bringing Emergency Services to Remote Places
06 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Autonomous aviation is making medical aid more accessible and emergency response time shorter than ever. In this conversation from WSJ’s Future of E...