Internet History Podcast
Episodes
215. The Biography Of Demis Hassabis
01 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This episode explores the fascinating journey of Demis Hassabis and the development of AI through the lens of Sebastian Mallaby's book, The Infinity M...
214. Chris Dixon of a16z
22 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Chris Dixon shares his journey from early programming experiences in the 1980s to becoming a prominent figure in venture capital and cryptocurrency. H...
213. Datadog Founder Olivier Pomel
15 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Olivier Pomel is the cofounder/CEO of Datadog. We trace his path from French open-source tinkerer to NYC founder, the dev-vs-ops friction that sparked...
212. Susan Lyne Part 2
08 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Part 2 of the Amazing career of Susan Lyne. Working with Martha Stewart. Gilt Groupe. Becoming a VC. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more i...
211. Susan Lyne Part 1
01 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I’ve maybe never interviewed anyone in my entire time as a historian and podcaster who has had a career as broad and varied as Susan Lyne. Yes, I ob...
210. Esther Dyson
23 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the more than 200 episodes I’ve done for this podcast, never has the designation “legend” been more appropriate. Esther Dyson is a legend of ...
209. Henry Blodget, Founder Of Business Insider
17 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Henry Blodget shares his journey from a history major to a prominent figure in finance and journalism, discussing the rise of the internet, the dot-co...
208. Clément Delangue Of Hugging Face
09 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Hugging Face Founder Clément Delangue discusses his journey to founding Hugging Face, emphasizing the importance of community, collaboration, and op...
207. John Borthwick Of Betaworks
03 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
John Borthwick shares his journey from a tech-savvy youth to a prominent figure in the New York tech scene. He discusses his early experiences with co...
206. Jimmy Wales, Founder Of Wikipedia
28 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome BACK to the Internet History Podcast. After essentially a 5 year hiatus, the Internet History Podcast is back, fully back, a whole slate of ep...
205. Margit Wennmachers Of a16z
27 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
People know that a16z changed tech by turning VCs and founders into rock stars. You know the names. But there’s one name you might not know, that re...
204. Fred Wilson, Of Union Square Ventures
26 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For my entire career in tech and startups, Fred Wilson has been like the god-level VC in the New York City ecosystem. Fred got his start investing bef...
203. Shirish Nadkarni On Microsoft, Hotmail, MSN and Blackberry Internet Email
19 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Serial entrepreneur Shirish Nadkarni came to the U.S. as a teenager with $25 in his pocket. After graduating from Harvard Business Scho...
202. The del.icio.us Story With Joshua Schachter
23 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Joshua Schachter, founder of del.icio.us, is someone I’ve wanted to talk to from the very first day of this podcast. As we’ll discuss, del.icio.us...
201. The History of Audible With Angelika Fuellemann
11 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Angelika Fuellemann is a designer who worked early on with BookSense.com, then got hired by Audible early on, so this is the early story of Audible. I...
200. Professional Blogging Pioneer Josh Marshall
14 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Josh Marshall is one of the key people who brought blogging into the realm of serious, award winning and respectable journalism. The story of his blog...
199. Is Tech Making Us- Bored, Lonely, Angry, Stupid?
01 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Is technology really rotting our brains, destroying our society... or is that what everyone has always worried about with every technological advance,...
198. Inventor of the Hashtag, Chris Messina
16 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Well, as we say in this episode, he’ll always be known as the inventor of the hashtag, but Chris Messina has been central to so many things in tech ...
197. The Internet Bookshop Story With the Tech Business History Podcast
02 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
I’ve said before I wish I could cover technology history beyond just North America, more… Well, Charles Miller has started a great podcast in Brit...
196. Google, Twitter and More With Karen Wickre
18 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone knows Karen Wickre, because she’s one of those classic connectors. Once we finally got in touch, I wasn’t surprised to learn we knew abou...
195. Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott
04 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Kevin Scott is the current Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft. We talk about his entire career, how being an academic seemed to be his path before ...
194. The History of the ISP Industry With Sonic's Dane Jasper
20 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Today we continue my efforts to preserve the history of the ISP industry. Today it feels like the Internet is simply all around us all the time, but t...
193. The Home Page Film With Doug Block
06 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
20 years ago, the acclaimed documentarian Doug Block released a landmark film, Home Page. Doug’s documentary accidentally chronicled the birth of bl...
192. Hulu's Founding and Digital Design With Dan Maccarone
23 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Maccarone is a digital design veteran, websites, products, strategy. He's got some amazing stories about the dotcom bubble, about the aftermath, a...
191. Bringing The WSJ Online With Rich Jaroslovsky Part 2
10 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Part two of the WSJ's online adventures intersect with several other stories we've covered on here over the years. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/priv...
190. Bringing The WSJ Online With Rich Jaroslovsky
25 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We’ve had a couple of people come on here to discuss how the New York Times got online, but the spiritual yin to their yang is the Wall Street Journ...
189. A Legal History of the Web Era With Richard Chapo
10 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It’s bothered me for a while that over the 5 years or so of this podcast, we haven’t focused very much on some corners of the history. For example...
188. TheGlobe.com Story With Stephan Paternot Part III
26 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Part three of our epic conversation with Stephan Paternot. Here's what happens when you've been through the wringer. When you've been to the top of th...
187. TheGlobe.com Story with Stephan Paternot Part II
06 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Ok, part 2 of the Stephan Paternot mega-episode right now. This is where we get into the meat of it, the good stuff, the whole crazy roller coaster ri...
186. TheGlobe.com Story with Stephan Paternot
24 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
I said in the book, I think TheGlobe.com was the quintessential dot-com company. We spoke to one of the cofounders previously, Todd Krizelman. Todd wa...
185. Ripple's David Schwartz
10 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
David Schwartz is the Chief Technology Officer at Ripple, the company behind the cryptocurrency XRP. What is it like to start, build and build out a c...
184. GV's Ken Norton
25 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Ken Norton is a partner at GV, Alphabets venture capital arm, but before that, he was a product manager at Google, where he led the development of pro...
183. Selling the First Facebook Ads, With Matt Britton
11 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Matt Britton not only sold the first ads to and for Facebook, way back in 2004, he gives us a really insightful and, frankly, unbiased look at what Fa...
Emergency Podcast Announcement
02 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Emergency Podcast Announcement Link to Amazon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
182. Google's Matt Cutts @mattcutts
28 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
I figure most of you should know who Matt Cutts is, but if you don't, let's just leave it at this: he's about to give you the best, most behind-the-sc...
181. (Ch. 7.5) The Story of craigslist
13 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
SUMMARY:The history of Craig Newmark, craigslist and other odds and ends that didn’t make the book! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more ...
180. Part 2 With John McCrea
30 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Simple enough: Part 2 with John McCrea. More on SGI, more on doing battle with Microsoft in the 90s. And... interesting stuff on VR and the future... ...
179. On Silicon Graphics with John McCrea (Pt. 1)
17 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
John McCrea is a Zelig-like personality who pops up in so many of the narratives we've already covered: Apple. Netscape. Doing battle with M...
178. On Google's 20th Birthday - The History of Google
01 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
On Google's 20th Birthday (September 4th) a re-cutting and re-airing of my comprehensive history of Google, from it's inception through its IPO. Happy...
177. NandO.net with Fraser Van Asch
19 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Nando.net was not only a very early experiment in bringing journalism to the web, it was also one of those local ISP's that flowered in the era of the...
176. The Epic Fail of Digg V.4 With Will Larson
06 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
This story has gone down in Silicon Valley lore as the ultimate cautionary tale. Digg was the earliest high flying startup in early social media. But ...
175. How the Internet Came to Pakistan With Imran Haider
22 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we're going to continue our occasional project of getting oral histories and personal anecdotes about how, exactly, the Internet and the web ca...
174. Bringing the NYTimes and MSNBC Online With Lisa Napoli
08 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Lisa Napoli got a job straight out of college at CNN in its earliest days, which is a crazy startup story in it’s own right. But then she worked for...
173. Netscape's Rosanne Siino
24 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Rosanne Siino has been on my list to talk to from day one of this podcast. As you know, I started by reaching out to Netscape folks and Rosanne was th...
HUGE Podcast Announcement
16 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
HUGE Podcast Announcement! Details on how to pre-order the podcast book! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
172. How Politics Came to the Web With Karl Mattson
10 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Today we're going to go back to take a look at early journalism on the web. Karl Mattson helped launched one of the first political news websites, Ele...
171. Claude Shannon, Father of Information Theory
27 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Claude Shannon was a mathematician, electrical engineer, and cryptographer known as "the father of information theory." In the pantheon of cool people...
170. The Godfather of Streaming Music, Robert Reid
13 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Summary:Robert Reid, the founder of Rhapsody, can be considered the Godfather (founding father?) of the streaming music reality we now live in. B...
169. Kottke.org's Jason Kottke, @jkottke
29 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Jason Kottke, of kottke.org fame, was one of the early bloggers, one of the first bloggers to go pro, and one of the few solo bloggers still going. If...
168. The History of Java With Todd Sundsted
15 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
People have been yelling at me for years that I’ve not covered more technical aspects of the web’s history, especially things like Java. Specifica...
167. NYTimes Tech Columnist, Farhad Manjoo @fmanjoo
01 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Today, a man who needs no introduction: New York Times Technology Columnist Farhad Manjoo. This episode was recorded about two months or so ago, so we...
166. Amazon, Hulu and Oculus with Eugene Wei
17 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
No joke, this is one of my favorite episodes we've ever done. Eugene Wei was an early employee at Hulu, so we get some details on that company for the...
165. Claire L. Evans, Author of Broad Band- The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet
04 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Claire Evans is the author of the new book: Broad Band The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet. This is the best tech history book I’ve ...
164. How the Web Came to Germany, With Thomas Ganter
19 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Podcast listener Thomas Ganter gives us a first person, anecdotal account of how the web came to Germany in the 1990s. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/...
163. The History of Online Video with JibJab's Gregg Spiridellis
05 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Gregg Spiridellis has been making things go viral on the web since before the term VIRAL was even a thing. His company, JibJab has been producing web ...
162. Venrock's David Pakman on Apple's Music Group, N2K, eMusic and Dollar Shave Club
21 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
David Pakman is a well respected venture capitalist at Venrock, but also a lifelong musician and music fan. Earlier in his career he played a signific...
161. Jeff Bussgang on Open Market and early eCommerce
08 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
It gets my goat that these days, the history of ecommerce begins and ends with Amazon. There were so many companies and big ideas that got us where we...
160. Growing Up With The Web With Desiree Garcia @thedezzie
18 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
An exploration of what it was like to come of age in the early web era. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
159. The Forgotten Story of PLATO, with Brian Dear
11 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Plato was an online and interactive learning computer system developed in the 1960s at the University of Illinois. But in the early 1970s, Plato got t...
158. Bob Stein of Voyager and The Criterion Collection
27 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Bob Stein was the founder of Voyager, publisher of the first consumer CDROM titles, and, far and away the leader of the CDROM industry in the late 198...
157. Rob Malda (@cmdrtaco) on SlashDot and Social Media
12 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
You might know him as Rob Malda, or you might know him as CmdrTaco, but he was the founder of the great geek social website Slashdot. Slashdot recentl...
156. Dave Winer on The Open Web, Blogging, Podcasting and More
30 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Dave Winer has been called the godfather of a lot of things. The godfather of blogging. The Godfather of Podcasting. One of the key people involved in...
155. Giphy with Nicole LaPorte
16 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
SUMMARY:Nicole Laporte has a cover story in Fast Company magazine this month about Giphy, potentially the next big story in online advertising and mar...
154. Om Malik on Blogging and Web 2.0
01 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Om Malik is, of course, a legend. One of the first journalists on the “tech beat” in the 1990s, one of the first bloggers to “turn pro,” one o...
153. The AOL/Time Warner Merger - Crossover with the Acquired Podcast
17 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
What is generally considered the worst merger of all time, and certainly the crescendo event of the dotcom bubble era, today we take a look at the AOL...
152. David Shen on Early Yahoo and the Maturation of Online Advertising
03 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
David Shen was employee #17 at Yahoo, where he eventually had a hand in, not only the birth of advertising as the primary business model for the web b...
151. Facebook's First Senior Software Engineer, Karel Baloun
13 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Karel Baloun was the first senior software engineer hired at Facebook in 2005. This was after the Accel round of funding, when Facebook truly began to...
150. More SoundCloud Chat with Buzzfeed's Ryan Mac
06 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Just as last week’s episode posted, another great piece about SoundCloud was posted on Buzzfeed by the great Ryan Mac. So, in a rare attempt by me t...
149. Christina Warren on SoundCloud
30 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Our friend Christina Warren is back for another analysis episode. Christina recently posted a tweetstorm about SoundCloud, and its prospects for the f...
148. Don Melton on Apple, Safari, WebKit and Netscape
23 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Don Melton is popularly known as the father of the Safari web browser or WebKit. He’s basically a web browser legend. Not only does Don tell us a lo...
147. The First Text Message With Neil Papworth
09 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The first text message (or, to be accurate, SMS message) was sent on December 3, 1992. It was sent by Neil Papworth, and it said, “Merry Christmas.”...
146. Mike Slade on Steve Jobs' Return To Apple
25 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
As promised, Mike Slade is back to tell stories from the period 1998 through 2004, when he was Special Assistant to Steve Jobs. Background details on ...
145. Brian Merchant, Author of The One Device
18 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Finally! A detailed history of the development of the iPhone inside Apple. But not only that, an extensive history of all the technologies that came t...
144. The "First" Blogger, Justin Hall
11 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
A lot of people give credit to Justin Hall for being, if not the first, then spiritually, at least, the “first” blogger. Since early 1994, first a...
143. Neil Hunt on the History of Netflix and Netflix Streaming
29 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
For several months now, I've been complaining on Twitter and a bunch of other places that, for as ubiquitous as Netflix streaming has become—I think...
142. Andy Rachleff @arachleff co-founder of Benchmark and Wealthfront
21 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Andy Rachleff was a co-founder of Benchmark, one of the most respected venture capital firms to this very day, and one of the biggest venture players ...
141. Nathan Latka @NathanLatka of the Top Entrepreneurs Podcast
13 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Summary Check out The Top Entrepreneurs Podcast here!Books recommended on this episode:Storming the Magic KingdomWalt DisneyUnconventional SuccessSay ...
140. The Google Chef, Charlie Ayers
24 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The famous Google Chef, Charlie Ayers, remembers joining Google when it was about 50 employees, the company’s early growth, culture, and the unique ...
139. The Napster Story with Jordan Ritter
16 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
If you know the Napster story at all, then you know about the Shawn(Sean)s. Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker. But in my opinion, and in the opinion of a ...
138. (Ch. 9.2) The History of Google Part 2
10 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
There was one important trait that Google shared with the dotcoms: it wasn’t making very much money. It’s somewhat forgotten, given what would com...
137. (Ch. 9.1) The History of Google Part 1
02 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
When Larry and Sergey first met, they didn’t like each other much...BIBLIOGRAPHY:In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives The Goo...
136. Petstore.com's Joshua Newman on the Pets Space During the Dotcom Era
26 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
During the dot-com era in the late 90s, there were four different venture-backed startups (six, depending on how you count) that focused on the pet re...
135. The Pseudo.com Story With Dennis Adamo
20 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Before Snapchat Stories, before YouTube, in the dial-up era of the 90s, there were a select few who were experimenting with streaming video and intera...
134. Yahoo's Acquisition of Overture (Crossover Ep. w/the Acquired Podcast)
13 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Today's episode is a special event, a crossover episode with the Acquired Podcast, which you can find in your podcast directory by searching for the w...
133. Gary Flake on Overture, Yahoo and the History of Search
26 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Gary Flake has been involved with search technology ever since he got turned on to this particular field in college. In this wide-ranging discussion, ...
132. MG Siegler @mgsiegler on TechCrunch and GV
20 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
You all know MG Siegler. From TechCrunch’s most famous blogger to GV’s most affable venture capitalist, he has a lot to say about Apple, the busin...
131. Elizabeth Osder on the NYTimes.com, Yahoo and More
13 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Elizabeth Osder is one of those digital media veterans who’s career has spanned the entire web era, from bringing the New York Times online (though,...
130. AOL, AIM, Chat Rooms, The Time Warner Merger... AOL's History with Joe Schober
06 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Joe Schober was the longest serving employee of America Online, working there as an engineer, and later chief architect, from 1992 until just a few ye...
129. Michael March on the Indie ISP Industry, and the Birth of Online Spam
30 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Michael March was the founder of Internet Direct, the first commercial ISP in Arizona. Michael gives us a first-hand account of the independent ISP in...
128. Jim McCann of 1800Flowers
16 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Would it surprise you to learn that 1800Flowers was not only one of the first ecommerce pioneers but quite possibly, the first to be profitable in a m...
127. The History of the iPhone, On Its 10th Anniversary
06 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
"So… Three things: A widescreen iPod with touch controls. A revolutionary mobile phone. And a breakthrough internet communications device. An iPod…...
126. (Ch. 8) How the Dotcom Bubble Happened
01 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The background, root causes and rough outline of the dotcom bubble. How it happened, why it happened... and why it's unlikely to happen again anytime ...
125. Sebastian Mallaby on Alan Greenspan and the Dotcom Bubble
12 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
As most of you know, I’m busy writing a book that this podcast is partially source material for, and at the moment, I’m deep in the weeds on chapt...
124. Founder of ReadWriteWeb, Richard MacManus
27 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
SummarySometimes you get to talk to your actual heroes. I've been reading Richard MacManus probably almost as long as he's been writing on the we...
123. Founder of Reel.com, Stuart Skorman
14 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
SummaryAt the dawn of e-commerce, if Amazon.com staked a claim in books, and sites like CDNow staked a claim in music, then Reel.com should be r...
122. The First Web Search Engine? With Oliver McBryan
07 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
If you’ll remember back to the chapter episode on the early search engines and Yahoo, I said that it’s hard to pin down exactly what the “first ...
121. Chamath Palihapitiya @chamath on Facebook, AIM and WinAmp
31 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
SummaryMost of you know Chamath Palihapitiya as one of the most prominent and progressive venture capitalists working today. But before forming Social...
120. Jason Calacanis @jason on Silicon Alley, The Dot-Com Bubble and Web 2.0
24 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Most of you will know Jason Calacanis from his many high profile endeavors such as his podcasts (especially This Week in Startups) his Launch conferen...
119. The Story of Slate.com with Julia Turner @juliaturner and Jacob Weisberg @jacobwe
09 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
SUMMARYI missed it (I should really be keeping a calendar of these things) but Slate.com celebrated its 20th anniversary last month. If you’ll recal...
118. The Birth of Amazon's 3rd Party Platform with John Rossman
26 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
John Rossman helped transform Amazon.com’s business. After the dotcom bubble burst, Amazon delved into a new business line that allowed third partie...