Technology podcast

Brad Sams is the executive editor for . He has more than a decade of writing and publishing experience under his belt including breaking news about upcoming Microsoft products to telling the story of how a billion dollar brand was birthed in his book,

Paul Thurrott is an award-winning technology journalist and blogger with 25 years of industry experience and the author of 30 books. He is the Major Domo at and the co-host of three tech podcasts: Windows Weekly with Leo Laporte and Mary Jo Foley, First Ring Daily with Brad Sams, and What the Tech with Andrew Zarian. He was formerly the senior technology analyst at Windows IT Pro and the creator of the SuperSite for Windows.

Proof:

***Thanks to everyone who stopped by, the AMA has ended***

I’m Microsoft's Chief Technology Officer. I have a podcast called Behind the Tech where I interview some of today's most interesting thinkers in tech, creativity, science, and entrepreneurship. In 2020, I wrote a book titled Reprogramming the American Dream, which is in large part about my belief that AI technology should benefit everybody. In previous roles, I led engineering at LinkedIn, helped run a startup called AdMob, and worked as an engineer at Google in the early 2000s.

I'm here today to answer questions on the state of technology, particularly AI. I believe that when built and used responsibly, AI is an incredibly useful tool that can transform how we try to solve some of the world's most pressing challenges. I am passionate about building and democratizing ethical technology, empowering its users, and making the world a generally more creative and wonderful place. Ask me anything!

Proof:

Behind the Tech podcast:

Reprogramming the American Dream:

Recent Microsoft blog discussing how AI is changing what developers are capable of:

UPDATE: Okay folks, time for me to sign off for the day. Thank you to everyone for the questions-- I had a great time connecting with you all. I hope you’re feeling inspired about the state of AI and what it can help you to achieve. As a special thank you from me and our friends at OpenAI, this will give you unlimited access to Codex models from OpenAI for three months, along with free tokens to use on other models in OpenAI's API. You can also try out some really cool applications of Codex that my team put together . I'm excited to see what this community builds! (update #2: link is closed for now, but you can still sign up for the Codex beta )

TL;DR - We tried to make a and it was extremely humbling.

Like many of you, I've been a fan of Radiolab for many years and, man, do I miss Jad and Robert and the old format. The topics, research, depth of storytelling, unparalleled sound design, and genuine excitement about "finding a universe in a blade of grass" captivated me over and over. And years later, I've gotten to relive that feeling through the ears of family members, as we listen to old episodes together like "Colors," "Sleep," and "Time." Now more than ever, when podcasts are a dime a dozen long form interviews and ramblings, I appreciate just how special Radiolab has been. Also, let's not be too hard on the post-2020 team. For one, I'm pretty sure many of them worked very hard on early Radiolab as well, and two, Jad and Robert's shoes were always going to be impossible to fill, and Lulu and Latif and team have still managed to create some good stuff.

Over the last several months, I've had the opportunity to work on a limited series with similar ambitions, and holy crap.... it makes you appreciate just how much work it must've been to make Radiolab... From developing stories to research to finding and lining up interviews to building music and sound design and all the rest of post-production... I'm not surprised at all that the team has faced uphill battles on funding and consistent release schedule over the years - it cannot be overstated that shows like this take an absolutely gargantuan amount of work.

Having said all of that, I'd like to share our series in the hopes that some of you might enjoy the topics, storytelling, music, and sound design, and appreciate the months of hard work that our tiny team has put into it. Obviously, it doesn't come anywhere close to early Radiolab, but I think we've at least made something memorable and unique in these times.

Our show is a 13-episode history of technology series called "Keyboard & Quill" and, like Radiolab, we've tried to blend interesting topics, research, interviews, and storytelling with exceptional music and sound design. Our topics touch on the evolution of communication, farming and manufacturing, land travel and maps, meal prep and delivery, and of course computers, smartphones, data and software. All episodes will be released by the end of next week.

Our music and sound design come from the very talented composer/producer Jeff Kite, who produces and plays alongside Julian Casablancas (The Strokes) in The Voidz. Our hosts, Tim and Rachel, are veterans of the Silicon Valley tech world and--while they aren't historians themselves--they've interviewed historians and academics from NYU, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Oxford, and others, as well as technologists, co-founders, and software engineers from all over.

It's on Apple Podcasts at and other platforms via

Would love to hear what folks think of the show, good or bad. Seriously, feel free to tell us it sucks like hell and why. :) Thanks for listening!

Hi

Anyone who can recommend a technical podcast ? One not suited for the crowd or business leaders but more “nerds” like myself. Topics like control theory and AI are obviously of interest 🙂

Any other topics are also welcome! Thanks

My newest project, , is a podcast where I bring the world stories of the people who struggled to find their own purpose, made it in the outside world, and then found deeper meaning beyond success. My guests so far include The Chainsmokers, Michael Seibel (CEO of Y Combinator) and Steve Huffman aka spez (CEO of Reddit).

Starting in 2021, I want to co-build this podcast with you all. I am launching a fellowship to let some of you work with my guests and me directly. We are looking for people to join who are walking an interesting path and discovering their true purpose. It went live 1 min ago and you can apply , now.

Find me on Twitter:

Sign up to The Quest newsletter:

Proof:

Hey guys! I posted on this subreddit a while back about starting a Philippine technology podcast. It's something I'm really interested in, and the response to my initial post was mostly positive. I've spent the last few months working on it, and have included a small snippet here:

I was wondering whether you think it is something you would listen to? Or something that people would be in to? I'd appreciate any suggestions!

DTNS frequently plugs Le RDV Tech as an excellent French language technology podcast. While I don't speak French, I love the idea of listening to a podcast on familiar topics in other languages. Given the broad listener base of DTNS, it seems very likely to me that the listeners can recommend other non-English language technology podcasts that they enjoy. If you have a favorite non-English technology podcast, please post it in the comments and I'll keep a running list here in the main post.

Edit: Thanks folks, keep them coming!

Danish

French

German

** Norwegian **

Spanish

Just curious if anyone knows of anything out there.

I have found lots of podcasts which explain stuffs. But, I don't like it being done like an interview or conversation. I am looking for podcasts where only the host speaks, addresses the listeners, and explains things; just like YouTube tutorials, only in audio form.

It's a common trope to claim that technology and social media has eroded attention spans, especially in younger generations. We've supposedly become inattentive goldfish unable to focus on anything, incapable of engaging with substantial content, instead succumbing to instant gratification and immediate fulfilment.

Many point to the rise of TikTok & other short videos as a symptom of this disease. This "evidence" is cherrypicking. I'm sick how uncritically accepted this trope has become.

It ignores the numerous flourishing examples of popular long-form content, some of which can reach movie lengths or even exceed it. It ignores the exploding growth in audiobook sales. It ignores the popularity of lengthy podcasts. They may not be reddit's favourite people, but podcasters like Joe Rogan & Lex Fridman command audiences of millions of listeners for podcasts often exceeding 2 hours. It ignores many long-form videos that populate Youtube; multi-hour video essays, reviews, documentaries, and tutorials. There's a on Youtube with 40M views lasting 4 hours. Is that indicative of a culture of instant gratification, of viewers unable to focus on content requiring an attention span over 60 seconds? It ignores livestreams that can command a significant audience for hours, amounting to billions of hours in total watch time. You could almost propose those viewers have attention spans that are too long. The audience of all this long-form content, like TikTok & its competitors, skews young. Sometimes overwhelmingly so.

So what accounts for the common complaints that people can't focus on anything these days?

What I think technology has actually done is reduce tolerance for poorly made, unengaging, uninteresting, uninspired, and/or boring content since it's more vulnerable to being supplanted than ever before. Prior to the digital era, individuals had fewer options for entertainment and information. This 'patience' was not necessarily a longer attention span, but a lack of alternatives. Attention has always wandered when things are boring or subpar. Today, there is both an awareness of better alternatives and ease to access them on-demand. Note that 'better' doesn't refer to just being entertaining, though that can & should contribute to quality. If effectively presented, substantive in-depth information on interesting topics can also successfully engage people, as my earlier examples demonstrate.

I think many who complain about lower attention spans are misdiagnosing the problem. The problem is not with the audience's attention span, but with their own tedious unengaging communication. They communicate without regard for whether it has the quality that deserves to capture & retain the audience's attention. They should look at themselves rather than shifting the blame to the audience. If you're one of these people, I'm sorry, but your communication & presentation skills probably suck.

To summarise: while many say technology reduced attention spans, I think it just decreased tolerance for subpar content. Rather than blaming 'decreased attention spans', the focus should instead be on improving communication to retain audience attention.

A lot of people point to the social and religious effects that disclosure will have as the main reason for the cover up, basically saying that those in power don’t want the status quo to be disrupted.

While I agree that could be the main reason, and I’m sure that’s the primary motivation for many, part of it could also be that UAP technology has the potential to be weaponized by well-funded non-state actors.

On the , former UK intelligence official Franc Milburn says that is definitely a concern based on conversations he’s had with his contacts.

I’ve had hate comments on this, just saying that things shouldn’t be divulged because some people…I’ll be honest, they’re pretty clueless. They just go, “Yeah, just let it all hang out there, all the technology.

The people I speak to are geniuses like Bob McGwier, who worked at the Center for Defense Analyses. I’ve talked to genius-level scientists like that. People who have been recruited by DARPA, by the Center for Defense Analyses, by the DoD, recruited direct from school. People who have worked on UAP technology. They’re going, “Are you crazy, releasing free energy just onto the open market?”

Because any well-developed actor like Hezbollah — which is a a transnational criminal and terrorist actor [that’s made] billions over the past two decades in drug money and illicit activities — and their patron Iran, they could very easily…they’re not stupid. Iran is not stupid. I’ve written extensive papers on Iran. Hezbollah is not stupid, I’ve written papers on them. They’re not stupid, they can get the scientific knowledge that could turn this free energy into the most devastating weapon that would make nukes look like firecrackers by comparison. This is what people that I’ve talked to in the US defense and scientific communities are telling me.

You do not let free energy out into the open sphere because humanity is not ready for it. On the plus side, yes they’re humanitarians and they want to help people. They want to make sure that the earth isn’t being destroyed, to protect the ozone layer, protect from climate change, all the rest of it. But humanity is not ready for this kind of technology. Look, we’ve barely scraped by with nuclear technology as it is. The Americans have already used it on the Japanese.

How many times have we almost come close to nuclear catastrophe? Are we really ready to unleash even more lethal technologies onto the world stage? That’s what scares me.

The Gillibrand amendment even says the duties of the new UFO office include investigating any links between UAP and “adversarial foreign governments, other foreign governments, or nonstate actors.”

There are definitely more nefarious reasons why this subject was initially kept secret, but I think it’s important to consider all the implications of disclosure when setting expectations.

I really hope we find a way to get free energy into the world without allowing bad actors to weaponize it.

Edit: Format.