Josh Brown is the CEO of Ritholtz Wealth Management and a regular CNBC contributor. Brown joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss what's behind Meta's historic $251 billion stock plunge, and Amazon's equally shocking $190 billion rise. This is a discussion about Meta and Big Tech, but as you listen you'll get a window into market fundamentals like "whisper" earnings targets and why growth stocks are going out of style. We also discuss what happens inside companies when their stock prices plummet...
Feb 09, 2022•52 min•Season 1Ep. 86
Brian Morrissey writes The Rebooting on Substack and hosts The Rebooting Show, a podcast. He is the former editor-in-chief of Digiday and digital editor of Adweek. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss how digital publishing is evolving from an industry reliant on social media for distribution to one that prioritizes focus and dedicated audiences. Stay tuned for the third segment where we discuss Brian's views on Web3, crypto, and how these new technologies may help the industry. Learn more...
Feb 02, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 85
Dr. Tom Insel led the National Institue of Mental Health for 13 years, departing toward the end of the Obama administration for a career in tech. Insel joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss how the data on our devices may unlock the key to treatment. Our conversation covers how tech can help manage and treat illness, the privacy ramifications of collecting this data, and whether social media is actually harmful for our mental health. You can pre-order Dr. Insel's forthcoming book, Healing: Our...
Jan 26, 2022•56 min•Season 1Ep. 84
Clare Malone is a staff writer at The New Yorker who recently wrote about Gettr, a rising conservative social network. David Thiel is the big data architect and chief technology officer of the Stanford Internet Observatory, where he's researched Gettr's usage. The pair join Big Technology Podcast to discuss Gettr — and its counterparts' — potential to take on incumbent social networks. We dig into the network's growth, its funding sources, and how mainstream social network policies open the door...
Jan 19, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 83
Senator Mark Warner takes us inside the battle to regulate Big Tech. Elected in 2008 and serving his third term in the U.S. Senate, Sen. Warner joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss whether we should regulate Big Tech and how the companies are fighting back — overtly and covertly. Ahead of the midterm elections, this year is crucial. In the second half, we also discuss whether members of Congress should trade individual stocks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Jan 12, 2022•49 min•Season 1Ep. 82
Aaron Levie is the CEO of Box, a $3.95 billion publicly-traded tech company. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss the rise of Web3 — a crypto-based vision for the internet — and where it can go wrong. Levie raises several important questions about where the Web3 theory and promise might slam into obstacles in the real world. Listen and you'll get a more nuanced view of Web3, something that goes beyond "This is the future" or "This will never work." Support this podcast at — https://redcirc...
Jan 05, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 81
Casey Newton is the editor of Platformer, a CNBC Contributor, and a friend of Big Technology Podcast. He joins us for our final show of the year, where we look back on the biggest stories of 2021 and predict what's coming in 2022. Join us for a conversation about Big Tech's year of transition, the upcoming Web3 wars, and whether the cult of the founder is falling apart. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Dec 29, 2021•53 min•Season 3Ep. 80
Bobby Allyn is an NPR tech reporter based in San Francisco. He's been waking up at 2 a.m. to watch the trial of ex-Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from the courthouse. In this episode, Allyn breaks down the case for and against Holmes, the biggest moments in the trial, and the potential outcomes now that the jury is deliberating. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dec 22, 2021•59 min•Season 1Ep. 79
Benedict Evans is an independent analyst who covers big tech and the broader technology landscape. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss Apple's move to $3 trillion, how the rest of the Big Tech companies stack up, what Web3 is really all about, and his former employer Andreessen Horowitz. Stick around for the third segment where he answers questions from Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Dec 15, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Season 1Ep. 78
Daniel Kahneman is a Nobel prize-winning psychologist and economist and author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, a landmark book that decodes human decision-making. Yann LeCun is the chief AI scientist at Meta (Facebook) and a pioneer in the field of deep learning, which the cutting edge of AI is based on today. The two come together on Big Technology Podcast this week to discuss how machines and humans learn, whether there are parallels, and what each field can learn from each other. Learn more about...
Dec 08, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Season 1Ep. 77
As companies head back to the office, and communities try to figure out the right Covid mitigation measures, data from sewage can help them get it right. Newsha Ghaeli and Mariana Matus are the co-founders of Biobot Analytics. Their company uses data from wastewater to alert companies and communities when they’re in the early stages of Covid outbreaks. Then they can adjust appropriately. Founded out of MIT, Biobot initially took on the Opioid epidemic, helping communities figure out the right wa...
Dec 01, 2021•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 76
Inflation is skyrocketing and everyone’s quitting their jobs. What does it mean? Liz Young, the head of Investment Strategy at SoFi, and Ranjan Roy, the co-author of Margins, help us figure it out in this week’s Big Technology Podcast . Come for an exploration of the source of the price hikes (Turkeys are 14% more expensive this year!) and a wild theory connecting interest rates with quitting. Stay for where to find savings (Hot Dogs!). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoi...
Nov 24, 2021•56 min•Season 1Ep. 75
Horacio Gutierrez is Spotify's head of global affairs and chief legal officer. He's a relentless critic of the way Apple treats smaller companies, testifying before the Senate in April that the company is abusing its power and harming competition. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss how Spotify has experienced Apple's behavior, why it's decided to speak up, and whether anything will come of this latest round of antitrust scrutiny for the tech giants. Learn more about your ad choices. Visi...
Nov 17, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 74
Zach Coelius is the managing partner of Coelius Capital. He's participating in an unprecedented moment where venture capitalists like him simply can't lose. There's so much money flooding the private markets that, as he put it, "any idiot with a checkbook looks like a genius right now." Coelius joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss why this is happening, where it will lead, and who gets hurt when the party ends. Stay tuned for the third segment where we read his tweets and mostly talk about Sa...
Nov 10, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Season 1Ep. 73
Lawrence Lessig is Frances Haguen's lawyer and a Harvard Law School professor. He joins Big Technology Podcast to address the various questions about Haugen's motivations, backers, and intent that have percolated since she came forward. We start by addressing whether the the leaked documents should be available to all and move into the conspiracies about her. A lively discussion follows. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Nov 03, 2021•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 72
Farhad Manjoo is an opinion columnist for the New York Times. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss whether the criticism of Instagram's impact on kids is overblown, the subject of a recent column. Stay tuned for the third segment, where we discuss Farhad's views of virtual reality, his Thanksgiving column, and his cats. Subscribe to Big Technology: https://bigtechnology.substack.com/ Farhad's story about Instagram: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/opinion/instagram-teenagers.html Learn m...
Oct 27, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Season 4Ep. 71
Join us for a 'mega' episode with three guests! The Markup investigative reporter Adrianne Jeffries leads off with a discussion of Amazon's self-preferencing in search. Stanford Internet Observatory's Renee DiResta joins for our second segment to discuss her story on bottom-up propaganda on social media, something she calls 'ampliganda.' Verge Reporter Zoë Schiffer rounds out the week with a look into the state of worker activism at Netflix and Apple. Check out Adrianne's story on The Markup , R...
Oct 20, 2021•1 hr 21 min•Season 1Ep. 70
Charlie Warzel writes the Galaxy Brain newsletter on Substack, a publication he started after a career at The New York Times and BuzzFeed. Warzel joins Big Technology Podcast in a live recording at Unfinished Live to discuss what a nuanced conversation about social media's harms should look like. Stay tuned for the second half where we discuss Warzel's views on post-Covid workplace culture, the subject Out of Office, a forthcoming book for which he is a co-author. Learn more about your ad choice...
Oct 13, 2021•41 min•Season 1Ep. 69
Michael Sayman was 16 years old when Facebook recruited him to join the company. The overture arrived as he was sitting in math class, and the teacher promptly took away his iPad. Sayman joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss why and how Facebook builds products for kids and teens (something he has intimate knowledge of) and the reasons why it won't stop. You can find Sayman's new book, App Kid, here: https://amzn.to/3uNDazI Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Oct 06, 2021•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 68
Wired senior writer Lauren Goode was on hand this week as Amazon introduced Astro, a home robot, and a Ring home-monitoring drone. Goode joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss her reaction to the products. And in the second half, stay tuned for a discussion of how Apple and Amazon are on a collision course even though they build products very differently. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sep 30, 2021•45 min•Season 1Ep. 67
Max Chafkin is the author of The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power, which debuts this week. The book is a fascinating, inside look into the life and rise of Silicon Valley’s most powerful and controversial venture capitalist. In this interview, we discuss whether Thiel is representative of Silicon Valley or an anomaly, and dig into who he really is and what motivates him. You can find the book here: https://amzn.to/3AwAKHB Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megap...
Sep 22, 2021•1 hr 21 min•Season 1Ep. 66
Jeff Horwitz is the Wall Street Journal reporter who unearthed a trove of internal Facebook documents that reveal a damning disconnect between what the company says in public and its actions inside. Brian Boland is a former Facebook executive who spent more than 11 years inside the company. The two come on to discuss Horowitz's bombshell series of reports, unpacking what they tell us about Facebook, dissecting the company's responses, and looking at potential solutions. Enjoy this bonus episode!...
Sep 18, 2021•57 min•Season 1Ep. 65
Erin Griffith is the New York Times reporter at the trial for Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. She joins Big Technology Podcast to bring us inside the courtroom, explaining why Holmes is on trial and whether she'll be a rare founder to face consequences for misleading investors. We also discuss whether Holmes is emblematic of the venture capital world's downsides, or an outlier. You can find Erin on Twitter, @eringriffith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Sep 15, 2021•54 min•Season 1Ep. 64
Zack O'Malley Greenburg is a music journalist who's spent time with everyone from Katy Perry to Kanye West. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss how the music industry seems to go through every major technology-driven shift before everyone else, including the decline of brick-and-mortar retail (see: Tower Records), to the rise of streaming content (Spotify), and even NFTs (WuTang's Once Upon a Time in Shaolin). Greenburg also discusses how he's applied lessons from some of the world's most...
Sep 08, 2021•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 63
Jonathan Knee is a professor at Columbia Business School and senior advisor at the investment bank Evercore. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss The Platform Delusion , his forthcoming book about how the term "platform" has become overused to the point that it has little meaning. Is Sweetgreen really a platform. Well, Sweetgreen thinks so (c'mon now). Listen for a discussion covering what should actually be called a platform, the fundamentals of the tech giants' businesses, and whether st...
Sep 02, 2021•54 min•Season 1Ep. 62
Nir Eyal is the bestselling author of Hooked and Indistractable. He joins Big Technology Podcast for a spirited debate over whether we're actually addicted to our phones, the ethics of app developers who use tricks to keep us coming back, and what to do about it. You can find Nir's books here: http://geni.us/Indistractable and http://geni.us/hooked Here's an Indistractable summary article: https://www.nirandfar.com/skill-of-the-future/ And a distraction guide: https://www.nirandfar.com/distracti...
Aug 26, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Season 1Ep. 61
Scott Heiferman is the founder of Meetup, a website that connects people online and gets them to meet each other offline. Heiferman joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss whether the internet can still bring people together vs. tear them apart, the latter of which it's done plenty of recently. This wide-ranging conversation gets into people's declining faith in institutions, our friendships and loneliness, Facebook's role in all this, virtual reality's potential, and the new company Heiferman i...
Aug 18, 2021•51 min•Season 1Ep. 60
Sheera Frenkel is a New York Times reporter and author of the best-selling book, An Ugly Truth . She joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss her hit book and her reporting process. We address critics's claims that Facebook reporters are harsh to the company because they’re mad Trump won, and they’re also upset that social media is eroding their gatekeeping power. Frenkel listens to these critiques and shares her perspective. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Aug 11, 2021•43 min•Season 1Ep. 59
Shelly Banjo is Bloomberg's New York Bureau Chief. She's also the host of Foundering , a podcast mini-series that documents TikTok's rise. Banjo joins Big Technology Podcast for a conversation about how TikTok's massive global reach creates serious data security risks and also opens up rival countries to influence operations from the Chinese government. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Aug 04, 2021•57 min•Season 1Ep. 58
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr wants to provide internet access to the people in Cuba so they can document and share the abuses of their government without censorship. Commissioner Carr, who rose to his rank after initially serving as an FCC intern, joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss his plan, how the technology would work, and the ethics and advisability of accelerating regime change by providing internet access to a population. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Jul 28, 2021•47 min•Season 1Ep. 57
