Professor Scott Galloway swings by to discuss how our economy can at once feel rigged yet loaded with opportunity. Galloway describes a “tilted” system that makes life difficult for young people and wage workers while lifting up assets like stock and equity and helping older generations. We talk not only about the problems, but the solutions for the system and the individuals within it. As usual, Galloway is a tour de force who comes loaded with insights and keen observations. Check out our spon...
May 19, 2021•49 min•Season 1Ep. 46
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 Podcast to discuss the book, Bezos's transformation, Amazon's culture, and what's in store for the company now that Bezos is leaving the CEO role. Check out our sponsor, Flatfile: https://flatfile.io Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
May 12, 2021•44 min•Season 1Ep. 45
Sridhar Ramaswamy is CEO of Neeva, an ads-free search engine he helped found after running Google's ads and commerce business. Ramaswamy spent seventeen years inside Google, and eventually grew disillusioned with its business. Now he's trying to create the solution with $77.5 million in funding. In this conversation, we discuss his evolving view on advertising, what decoupling search from ads allows from a product standpoint, and how the current anti-trust environment is opening Google up to the...
May 06, 2021•55 min•Season 1Ep. 44
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 Big Technology Podcast to discuss the decision, the board's deliberations, and what comes next for Facebook and Trump. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 05, 2021•42 min•Season 1Ep. 43
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 cryptocurrency, seems to be minting new millionaires daily. NFTs, tokens that enable the buying and selling of digital art, are going for millions. Bitcoin's price is volatile, up $10,000 one week, down by the same amount the next. The overall market, meanwhile, is cranking. In this week's episode, we go deep into what's actually taking place, and discuss...
Apr 28, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Season 1Ep. 42
Platformer's Casey Newton returns to Big Technology Podcast to discuss the intensifying battle among Facebook, Clubhouse, Spotify, Apple, and Twitter in the new, social audio space. Fresh off a conversation with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Newton discusses Facebook's plans, Clubhouse's potential for longevity, and what empowering the individual vs. the institution really means. Plus we discuss this week's big Apple release event. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Apr 21, 2021•50 min•Season 1Ep. 41
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 called "Hands Off The Wheel." She joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss how and why Amazon rolled the program out, how she and her fellow vendor managers reacted, and what it portends for the rest of us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Apr 14, 2021•48 min•Season 1Ep. 40
ProPublica senior reporter Alec MacGillis highlights the growing economic divide in the U.S. — through the lens of Amazon — in his new book, Fulfillment . MacGillis joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss the state of the union push inside Amazon, how labor has changed more broadly in the U.S., and the uneasy political coalition between those packing and delivering Amazon packages and those receiving them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Apr 07, 2021•54 min•Season 1Ep. 39
Carole Cadwalladr and Yael Eisenstat are two of the most prominent Facebook critics worldwide. Cadwalladr is the journalist who broke open the Cambridge Analytica story for the Guardian and The Observer. Eisenstat, a former CIA officer, worked on election integrity inside Facebook for six months before quitting and speaking out against the company. The two Facebook critics join Big Technology Podcast to discuss some people’s disenchantment with tech criticism, the role of Facebook’s Oversight Bo...
Mar 31, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Season 1Ep. 38
BuzzFeed News executive editor Mat Honan has long covered the way society interacts with technology. He joins Big Technology Podcast this week to discuss the “Zoom Class,” the rise of NFTs, and how San Francisco may change after the pandemic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mar 24, 2021•51 min•Season 1Ep. 37
Rest Of World is a new publication that covers technology outside of North America and Europe. Sophie Schmidt and Louise Matsakis join Big Technology Podcast to discuss why they believe it's setting a new path forward for international tech coverage. Schmidt founded the publication in 2019 after growing convinced that the next tech decade belongs to the rising giants outside of the Western world. Growing up while her father, Eric Schmidt, ran Google taught her some important lessons along the wa...
Mar 17, 2021•50 min•Season 1Ep. 36
Senator Amy Klobuchar will be leading the charge in Congress as the legislature interrogates the power of big tech, and potentially takes action to restrain it. She's the new Chairwoman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, so it's in her hands now. Klobuchar and I spoke this past week ahead of the first hearing she held to kick the off process. And rather than simply writing the conversation up, which I did on the Big Technology newsletter t...
Mar 13, 2021•19 min•Season 1Ep. 35
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-cursed role that seemed to turn over every few months. Now, Beykpour’s team is shipping . Twitter just released a Clubhouse clone, called Spaces. It bought Revue, a newsletter platform. And it just announced Super Follow, a feature that wraps it all together by letting you pay for added access and content from people you follow on Twitter. This is new territo...
Mar 10, 2021•55 min•Season 1Ep. 34
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 enter the workplace in a real way. New York Times columnist Kevin Roose returns to Big Technology Podcast for a bonus episode for a discussion on what's actually happening based on the research. His book on the subject — Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation — comes out today. You can order Futureproof here: https://www.kevinroos...
Mar 09, 2021•53 min•Season 1Ep. 33
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 Technology Podcast to discuss Facebook's feud with Apple, its battle with Signal, its bungled privacy update, new laws in India that might force it to break encryption, the way it thinks about content moderation and advertising, and plenty more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Mar 03, 2021•50 min•Season 1Ep. 32
In 2011, Wael Ghonim created a Facebook page that sparked the overthrow of the Egyptian regime. Since then, the former Google marketing director has kept a close eye on social media's evolution, and has plenty to say about where it's gone wrong, and how it can get better. Ten years after Cairo residents painted "Facebook" on the walls after the revolution, Ghonim stops by Big Technology Podcast to revisit what happened and where we go from here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone....
Feb 24, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Season 1Ep. 31
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 of tech in the U.S. They’re showing up on a tech podcast because they see an opportunity to take some of the growth once headed to the Bay Area, and bring it home. They may have a chance. Out of the four mayors I asked to be on the show, only San Francisco Mayor London Breed declined. That says something. What’s clear from speaking with the mayors...
Feb 16, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Season 1Ep. 30
In India, the Narendra Modi government is threatening to put Twitter officials in jail unless they block approximately 250 accounts of people they don’t like. They include activists, political commentators, a movie star, and an investigative news magazine. That’s why we’re doing a bonus, emergency podcast on this quick developing situation, and what it means for the future of speech on the internet, and social media more broadly. Joining us to discuss is Pranav Dixit, a reporter at BuzzFeed News...
Feb 13, 2021•47 min•Season 1Ep. 29
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 seismic story and what it means for the business world. Joining us to discuss what Amazon looks like after Bezos is Jason Del Rey, a senior correspondent at Recode and author of a forthcoming book on Amazon’s battle with Walmart. Here's Jason's story on what to expect from incoming CEO Andy Jassy: https://www.vox.com/recode/22264330/amazon-ceo-andy-jassy-j...
Feb 10, 2021•26 min•Season 1Ep. 28
In January, I wrote a story for OneZero about the content moderation war in store for smaller social platforms like Clubhouse, Spotify, and Substack. As part of my reporting, I reached out to Glenn Greenwald, a strident voice against moderation who left The Intercept for Substack last year. While I'm not in lockstep with Greenwald ideologically, I wanted to hear his thoughts at length. This week’s Big Technology Podcast features my full conversation with Greenwald, where we discuss his move to S...
Feb 03, 2021•38 min•Season 1Ep. 27
Ranjan Roy has documented the fundamental issues driving today's market volatility, from Zero Interest Rate Policy to the rise of Robinhood. He joins Big Technology Podcast for an emergency episode on the Gamestop madness, explaining the forces behind the surge. You can read Margins here on Substack: https://themargins.substack.com/ And two specific articles we discuss: https://themargins.substack.com/p/robinhood-and-how-to-lose-money https://themargins.substack.com/p/game-stop https://themargin...
Jan 29, 2021•54 min•Season 1Ep. 26
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. And while they focus on political change, they spend a surprising amount of time focusing on technology, recognizing the industry’s power. The two joined this week’s Big Technology Podcast to discuss how they see the U.S. political system realigning after Trump and what that will mean for the tech industry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...
Jan 27, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Season 1Ep. 25
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 their own reasons, will now be looking to exact vengeance on the platforms. With some compromise, they may even get somewhere. Bradley Tusk, a VC who works with startups facing regulatory hurdles, has a few thoughts about what regulation the tech giants may face. Tusk joins the Big Technology Podcast to break it all down, starting with a bold predictio...
Jan 20, 2021•59 min•Season 1Ep. 24
Over the past week, both Facebook and Twitter suspended President Donald Trump’s account. These companies don’t take such aggressive action lightly, and it took Trump sending a mob toward the U.S. Capitol, which they eventually breached, to force the issue. For years, BuzzFeed News senior reporter Ryan Mac and I have been watching these companies’ every move. Previously as colleagues at BuzzFeed. Ryan joined me this week on the Big Technology Podcast for a discussion on whether the social platfo...
Jan 13, 2021•1 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 23
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 radicalized through YouTube. For the story, Roose examined Cain’s entire YouTube history, and plotted the path he took toward radicalization. Software engineer and researcher Mark Ledwich took issue with the story, citing his own research and claiming the notion that YouTube could radicalize was a myth. Instead of yelling at — and past — each other, Ledwi...
Jan 06, 2021•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 22
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 participation is at an all-time low, with 23% of people in the US declaring themselves as having no religion. Technology has played a big role in this decline in community, with most people preferring to sink into the internet instead of strengthening physical bonds. And with such a gaping hole in our lives, cults are filling the void. Joining us to discuss ...
Dec 23, 2020•53 min•Season 1Ep. 21
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 active and perhaps fill a social void. Peloton has more than 3 million users, members are averaging 24 workouts per month, and this past September, the company announced its first profitable quarter. This week, it became more valuable than Ford Motor Company. Emma Lovewell, a full-time fitness instructor for Peloton, joins the Big Technology Podcast ...
Dec 16, 2020•51 min•Season 1Ep. 20
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 the app from operating in its current form in the U.S. The order gave TikTok a 45-day deadline, but after a few extensions, we’re now in December, and TikTok is still running. As TikTok twists in the wind, Gary Vaynerchuk, owner of digital ad agency VaynerMedia, and Blake Chandlee, TikTok’s head of global business solutions, join the Big Technology P...
Dec 09, 2020•36 min•Season 1Ep. 19
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 its ride hailing service, is watching many of its customers buy cars and stay home. The new trouble for Uber comes after the company worked to right itself after years of turbulence under ex-CEO Travis Kalanick’s leadership. Emil Michael, the former Uber chief business officer and confidant to Kalanick, joins the Big Technology Podcast to discuss U...
Dec 02, 2020•59 min•Season 1Ep. 18
The Federal Trade Commission is preparing an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, and Instagram is in its sights. The agency is poised to revisit Facebook’s 2012 acquisition of the popular mobile app, and a long fight may await. Bloomberg reporter Sarah Frier wrote the most in-depth account of Facebook’s Instagram acquisition in her April 2020 book No Filter . She joins the Big Technology Podcast to tell the story of what happened and what may be in store next. Learn more about your ad choices. V...
Nov 25, 2020•58 min•Season 1Ep. 17
