Episodes
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The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Harley Finkelstein, president of Shopify, to talk about the market mayhem (3:50), Shopify coming out of the shadows (5:25), how it got started (11:30), how Amazon have up on the online stores business (19:35), getting into delivery (22:45), the renewed Amazon threat (27:45), the future of direct-to-consumer commerce (31:30), how Apple has upended online ads (36:10), and the best and worst of going fully remote (38:30).
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The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Kentaro Kawamori to talk about starting out in the oil industry (3:30), growing up all around the world (8:00), doing esports (10:00), going to three universities at once (13:30), dealing with drunken Japanese salarymen (14:40), the need for carbon accounting (17:30), how Persefoni works (24:15), Big Oil billionaires backing climate tech (27:15), raising $100 million (29:00), what happens after measurement (32:30), why Exxon’s loss to green investors was a big deal (34:30), the SEC pushing through with climate disclosure rules (38:10), and his worst day of work (41:50).
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The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on two guests this week. First up is Steven Levy, editor-at-large at Wired and author Facebook: The Inside Story, to talk about Sheryl Sandberg’s original “deal” with Mark Zuckerberg (5:00), what Facebook was in the early days (7:10), the failure of the Zuck-Sheryl partnership (9:30), consolidation of Zuckerberg’s power (19:00), the Washington DC operation (21:00), what Sandberg does next (26:30), and what Meta does next (31:20). Then Chris Sheldrick, co-founder and CEO of What3words, comes on to talk about dividing the world into 57 trillion squares (36:30), the origin of the idea (38:40), getting the world to sign up (42:00), partnering with Jaguar Land Rover (44:10), breaking into America and other markets (46:50), the battle for mapping dominance (50:15), the business model (54:20), translating the system into different languages (55:50), and getting its first contract - in Mongolia (57:40)
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The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Anne Boden, founder of fintech unicorn Starling Bank, to talk about the post-pandemic workplace (3:30), the market collapse (8:40), starting a bank after the recession (11:50), growing up in South Wales (14:25), why banks aren’t good at tech (17:45), how people reacted to her as a first-time, 50-something entrepreneur (22:00), the first “yes” after 400 “no’s” (25:00), the banks’ lack of confidence (30:00), getting to 3 million customers in three years (33:40), sexism (39:40), breaking out of being a “trial bank” (42:20), crypto (43:40), and money laundering in London (46:25).
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The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Avinash Rugoobur, president of Arrival, to talk about the challenge of creating an electric vehicle company from scratch (3:30), micro-factories (6:20), how the EV shift has already happened (10:30), why small is beautiful (15:50), the problem with paint (19:50), starting at GM’s innovation unit (24:20), when he started a “chocolate lounge” (25:45), meeting Arrival founder Denis Sverdlov (30:10), the importance of mentors (35:10), what keeps him up at night (38:30), and operating in a bear market (42:00).
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The Sunday Times' tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Kat Norton, creator of Miss Excel, to talk about what she did before Miss Excel (3:30), declaring she would be “rich and famous” (7:30), deciding to try Tiktok (9:50), hitting 100,000 views with an early video (11:50), creating an Instagram presence (13:55), quitting her job (15:30), webinars (17:10), going from zero to seven figures in a year (19:00), on whether the pace is sustainable (24:10), social media negativity (27:10), the new world of Excel creators (28:45), and leaving New York (31:20).
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The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Vivas Kumar, founder of Mitra Chem, to talk about batteries (4:00), starting out at Tesla (8:10), launching his company (9:50), the race for battery resources (12:40), iron and China (14:00), meeting Chamath Palihapitya (18:10), going from India to Singapore to Texas to California (21:40), the Tesla roller coaster (26:30), making cathode powder (34:15), and the million-mile battery (39:30).
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The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on two guests, Hany Farid of UC Berkeley’s School of Information, and James Currier, general partner at NFX, to talk about Twitter and social media. Farid is up first to talk about free speech (4:50), the ideal of the Internet (10:00), the content moderation challenge (14:45), Musk’s plan for Twitter (18:50), why Farid’s optimistic (23:00), the cost of misinformation (27:00), and his prediction for Twitter (30:30). NFX’s James Currier then comes on to talk about the state of social media (33:35), taming the savageness of man (40:40), the bot problem (42:35), the uniqueness of Twitter (44:35), the Tiktok effect (46:50), the rise and fall of consumer products (51:55), the return to social media normalcy (54:25), the value of a social graph and Twitter’s future (57:45), and the crash in tech markets (1:02:10).
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The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Sunil Paul to talk about how the “orange day” inspired him to start Spring Free (4:00), pioneering car-sharing and ride-sharing (9:50), why his company Sidecar didn’t work (14:35), the idea behind Spring Free (17:35), the Airbnb of electric vehicles (21:50), finding enough cars (27:40), getting billionaires to back him (32:10), applying the lessons form ride-sharing (33:00), building Spring Free as a consumer fintech brand (38:40), comparing the climate opportunity to the dawn of the web and his early days at AOL (40:00), and his worst day (47:25).
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The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Philip Rosedale, founder of Second Life, to talk about why he has returned as an advisor and investing the virtual world years after having left (4:30), how many people are on Second Life today (10:05), the $650m Second Life economy (12:05), digital goods millionaires (14:20), the dangers of an ad-driven model (16:40), how you govern a metaverse with 1 billion people (24:40), moderating (28:30), the future of the metaverse (36:00), whether Mark Zuckerberg can pull it off (40:40), and the concept of race in virtual worlds (43:30).
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The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Francesca Howland and Julia Mallaby, co-founders of Bimble, to talk about what they did before launching their travel startup (3:50), when they decided to team up (8:10), starting a company mid-career (10:20), raising money (15:05), launching the app (18:35), their worst day (19:40), setting up their tech team in Ukraine (22:20), building up a social network (28:35), coming up with the name (32:15), and influencer marketing (33:00).
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The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Jesse Powell, founder of crypto exchange Kraken, to talk about his first startup selling video game virtual goods (3:00), reading about bitcoin (9:40), why he thinks bitcoin will replace gold (12:00), launching Kraken (12:50), getting a banking license (15:00), selling tens of thousands of bitcoin (17:00), how widespread crypto actually is (20:40), the inherent weakness in the market (26:00), the Mt Gox bankruptcy (27:40), the impending failure of fiat currency (31:40), the power of the current system (34:35), raising just $20 million (36:00), and reaching the masses (40:00).
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The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Emily Kirsch, founder of Powerhouse, to talk about starting the company in 2013 (2:50), launching a pilot venture capital fund (5:50), working as a community organiser and getting funding from Prince (7:00), taking lessons from her parents’ non-profit (10:00), starting in a bear market for green technology (13:20), the talent shift (16:45), getting big corporates to really change (20:00), why the software layer is important (24:30), choosing investors (31:05), creating a female-only firm (34:05), and the green investing wave (38:40).
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The Sunday Times' tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Patrick Hessel, chief executive of Aeromobil, to talk about the company's flying car (4:10), why he thinks the world needs it (9:00), the business model (12:00), fender benders (14:40), trying to raise money (16:10), who they are marketing to (19:25), going from investor to chief executive (25:00), the EVTOL boom (26:35), and what keeps him up at night (32:40).
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The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Matt Mahar, chief executive of Cana, to talk about the problem with the $2 trillion drinks company (5:55), the science of Cana (8:00), how the company started (10:00), where he worked before Cana (16:40), the product (18:15), getting people to buy in (20:00), whether “printed” drinks are good for you (23:30), providing every drink from morning to night (26:00), except for milk and beer (28:40), the specter of Juicero (31:15), and trying to find the right people (34:20).
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The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Stephen Hsu, co-founder of Genomic Prediction, to talk about the plummeting price of genomic sequencing (5:00), predicting height and cancer (9:10), mining biobanks (14:25), scoring embryos (19:00), why investors are staying anonymous (28:00), the need for a society-wide discussion (32:30), when he was accused of being a eugenicist (37:25), how powerful genetic prediction can be (43:15), genetic engineering (49:45), and why Denmark is the future (59:30).
See Stephen Hsu's podcast here: https://www.manifold1.com/
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The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Baroness Beeban Kidron to talk about the crackdown on Silicon Valley over how they treat children online (4:30), the age-appropriate design code (8:45), creating a window into the child’s experience online (13:10), the regressive effect of social media on girls and young women (18:00), the fallout from Frances Haugen’s whistleblowing (23:15), why she let he career as a film director (26:30), joining the House of Lords (31:30), leaving school at 15 (33:20), starting the 5 Rights Foundation (35:15), getting the Age Appropriate Design Code passed (41:00), and enforcing the code (45:40).
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The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Bessemer Venture Partners’ David Cowan to talk about the potential end of Moore’s law (4:55), the double slit experiment (6:45), quantum computing (15:30), the traveling salesman problem (22:15), what quantum computers look like (2:30), the problems they will solve (30:35), and the impending quantum heist (35:15).
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The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Paul Shapiro, founder and chief executive of Better Meat, to talk about making meat alternatives, (4:00), the $300,000 burger (11:00), using fungi (12:00), turning mushroom roots into steak (16:35), becoming an ingredient company (18:00), growing up an animal lover (19:45), starting an animal rights NGO (23:00), changing his approach (26:30), writing a book (28:40), starting Better Meat (31:50), experimenting with alternatives (33:45), his first hire (35:20), scaling up (39:20), the slow rate of innovation (43:10), his worst day of work (47:25), and society’s stubborn views on meat (49:05).
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The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Bryan Johnson, founder of Kernel, to talk about creating a new brain-measuring device (4:20), why he did it (7:10), launching a new layer of brain data in society (10:00), bringing the product to market (14:30), taking inspiration from Sir Ernest Shackleton (18:10), selling the Kernel Flow for smartphone price (20:40), creating new markets (24:30), funding it himself (28:00), measuring willpower (30:30), his startup as a reaction to Big Tech (35:3), choosing a Shackleton-type voyage over retiring to a farm (39:40), and Danny's brain results (43:10).
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