Louise Matsakis is a technology reporter and writes You May Also Like on Beehiiv. Matsakis joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss her recent story for Big Technology about how Shein and Temu snuck up on Amazon and what these two Chinese ecommerce companies have done to carve out a growing slice of the online retail market. In this story, we talk about demographics, marketing, tariff loopholes, and more. Stay tuned for the second half where we discuss the state of the TikTok ban and how China is...
May 29, 2024•43 min•Season 1Ep. 296
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) Google's AI Overviews tell us to eat rocks 2) Is this a signal the web really is done? 3) Google's history of messy AI launches 4) OpenAI's super-alignment team in chaos 5) Is there immediate AI safety risk or did the team leave because there isn't? 6) OpenAI's NDA practices 7) Did OpenAI take Scarlett Johansson's voice? 8) Is there a line for the tech industry taking intellectual property? 9) NVIDIA's...
May 24, 2024•59 min•Season 1Ep. 295
Aaron Levie is the CEO of Box. Levie joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss the implications of AI getting cheaper and faster after OpenAI cut GPT-4o's prices by half and made it twice as fast. We also cover AI's impact of AI on jobs, the evolving AI safety debate, and how companies like Box are harnessing these powerful technologies. It was our first public event and such a blast to meet so many of you! Hit play for a thought-provoking exploration of the AI cutting edge, and what comes next. -...
May 22, 2024•55 min•Season 1Ep. 294
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) OpenAI's GPT-4o announcement 2) Is voice + video the right user interface? 3) Do we need smartglasses for this technology? 4) Was ChatGPT-4o too flirty? (yes) 5) OpenAI's potential iOS partnership with Apple 6) Siri improvements are coming 7) What AI + iphone could look like ahead of WWDC 8) Will AI features increase iPhone purchases 9) Listener feedback on the iPad 10) Ilya's out 11) Future of allignm...
May 17, 2024•46 min•Season 1Ep. 293
Dwarkesh Patel is the host of the Dwarkesh Podcast, where he's interviewed Mark Zuckerberg, Ilya Sustkever, Dario Amodei, and more AI leaders. Patel joins Big Technology to discuss the current state and future trajectory of AI development, including the potential for artificial general intelligence (AGI) and superintelligence. Tune in to hear Patel's insights on key issues like AI scaling, alignment, safety, and governance, as well as his perspective on the competitive landscape of the AI indust...
May 15, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 292
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) Apple's bad iPad ad 2) Is the backlash largely due to the creative, of people's feelings about Apple as a company 3) Asking Claude about the reaction to the ad 4) Apple's big moment at WWDC 5) Apple building server-side AI compute 6) Better Siri 7) OpenAI teases GPT-5 8) AI assistant buzz 9) AI as a dating concierge 10) AI news creating a zombie internet 11) Netflix's Tom Brady roast 12) Netflix's big ...
May 10, 2024•54 min•Season 2Ep. 291
Felix Salmon, Emily Peck, and Elizabeth Spiers are the hosts of the Slate Money podcast. They join Big Technology to discuss the economics and societal implications of artificial intelligence and robotics. Tune in to hear their nuanced take on the costs, challenges, and potential paths forward for companies like OpenAI and Tesla as they pursue ambitious goals AI and robotics. We also cover the realities of retirement in modern economies and the ongoing debate over raising retirement ages. Join u...
May 08, 2024•51 min•Season 1Ep. 290
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) Ranjan's visit to India and his use of Perplexity to gain cultural understanding and context 2) AI news' reliability 3) How social media drives the college protest 4) The need to elevate the reasonable voice 5) Elon Musk email Alex with details about X's AI news play 6) Could X's AI news plan work? 7) X warming to news? 8) AI monetization challenges 9) Risking the trough of disillusionment in AI 10) Ap...
May 03, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 289
Alan Cowen is the CEO and founder Hume AI. Cowen joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss how his company is building emotional intelligence into AI systems. In this conversation, we examine why AI needs to learn how to read emotion, not just the literal text, and examine at how Hume does that with voice and facial expressions. In the first half, we discuss the theory of reading emotions and expressions and in the second half we discuss how it's applied. Tune in for a wide ranging conversation th...
May 01, 2024•57 min•Season 1Ep. 288
Deirdre Bosa is the anchor of CNBC's TechCheck. She joins the show for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) Whether LLMs are running out of resources 2) The costly business of AI 3) Meta's stock drop after Zuck talks costs 4) Meta's roller coaster 5) Microsoft's AI results 6) The virtues of Claude 7) Google's impressive earnings report and dividend 8) Sundar's comeback 9) TikTok's 'ban' goes into action 10) Is TikTok already dead? ---- Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Pleas...
Apr 26, 2024•44 min•Season 1Ep. 287
M.G. Siegler is a venture partner at GV, formerly google ventures, and the author of Spyglass . He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss what Apple may have cooking for its AI-themed WWDC event in June. We discuss what Apple may do on the consumer front, including how much of iOS it's willing to change in service of AI features. And then we dig into its potential AI play for developers, including on-device processing and its own foundational model. We also talk about its interest in robotics. ...
Apr 24, 2024•56 min•Season 1Ep. 286
Alex Heath from The Verge is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) Taylor Swift's new album 2) Meta's new Llama 3 release 3) Does conversational AI work in a social media products? 4) Will the value of generative AI be realized in foundational models or products? 5) Zuck's new icon status 6) Bearded Zuck 7) The risks of open sourcing massive AI models 8) Sundar Pichai writes a stern letter to Google employees 9) Google fires 28 employees involved in office takeover ...
Apr 19, 2024•55 min•Season 1Ep. 285
Kara Swisher is the author of Burn Book and host of the Pivot and On With Kara Swisher. Swisher joins Big Technology to discuss the latest tech news and share her opinion of the nature of tech leaders. We discuss Marc Andreessen, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, Tim Cook, Andy Jassy, Satya Nadella, Sam Altman, and Mark Cuban. Then we examine the nature of a great leader's personality, how much luck vs. skill plays a role in success, the impact of having lots of money. And plenty more, ...
Apr 17, 2024•55 min•Season 1Ep. 284
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) The Solar Eclipse! 2) AI Music generation software Suno 3) Google flipping of its AI narrative 4) Ranjan's reflections from Google Cloud Next 5) Is Google's AI enterprise bet the right strategy 6) Microsoft hedging its OpenAI bet 7) Implications of Mustafa Suleyman's remit within Microsoft 8) OpenAI fires leakers 9) Eliezer Yudkowsky refuses interview and his reps won't pick up the phone 10) AI model t...
Apr 12, 2024•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 283
Jack Clark is the co-founder of Anthropic and author of Import AI. He joins Big Technology Podcast for a mega episode on Anthropic and the future of AI. We cover: 1) What Anthropic and other LLM providers are building towards 2) What AI agents will look like 3) What type of traning is neccesary to get to the next level 4) What AI 'general intelligence' 5) AI memory 6) Anthropic's partnerships with Google and Amazon 7) The broader AI business case 8) The AI chips battle 9) Why Clark and others fr...
Apr 10, 2024•1 hr 25 min•Season 1Ep. 282
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news, with special guest Zeke Faux of Bloomberg News and Number Go Up fame. We cover 1) Why crypto is thriving after poster boy SBF was convicted and sentenced 2) The latest rise of memcoins including dogwifhat and NFTs like CryptoDickbutts 3) Is this evidence of a deeper societal problem or just gambling? 4) The resilience of crypto, including Tether 5) Zeke's reporting on pig butchering scams 6) The rise of Nudes In B...
Apr 05, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 281
Marissa Mayer is the CEO and co-founder of Sunshine, the former CEO of Yahoo, and a longtime Google executive. She joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss why she's betting on consumer tech, building a new array of products including Sunshine Contacts and the newly released Shine, a photo sharing app. Mayer discusses how AI impacts building for consumers today, and whether independent tech stands a chance against big tech. We also discuss the state of OpenAI, Google's competitive position, the l...
Apr 03, 2024•50 min•Season 1Ep. 280
Reed Albergotti is the tech editor at Semafor. He joins Big Technology Podcast to break down the week's news. We cover: 1) SBF's sentencing 2) Is 25 years fair? 3) Is FTX a symptom of crypto or an exception 4) OpenAI and Microsoft may build a $100 billion supercomputer 5) Will the supercomputer help OpenAI get closer to AGI 6) Why the supercomputer project may be OpenAI's big swing to stay ahead 7) Claude surpasses GPT-4 in Chatbot Arena 9) Is voice computing the next AI interaction layer 10) A ...
Mar 29, 2024•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 279
Jim Lanzone is the CEO of Yahoo. He joins Big Technology Podcast for the long awaited Yahoo Episode, a deep dive into a company that remains one of the most visited and influential property on the web. Tune in as Lanzone describes how Yahoo's verticals operate, how the company thinks about generative AI for its search bar, and whether it's still possible to build a solid business on the web. Ranjan Roy joins us as well for a rare Wednesday appearance on the podcast. Tune in for a deep, engaging ...
Mar 27, 2024•50 min•Season 1Ep. 278
The Information's Jessica Lessin and CNBC's Steve Kovach join us for a star studded Friday episode breaking down the week's news. Lessin is the CEO and founder of The Information and co-host of the More or Less podcast. Kovach is a technology correspondant at CNBC. We cover (with Lessin): 1) Rumors of GPT-5 being shown to founders, and what it might look like 2) Whether OpenAI is vulnerable now that model quality is converging 3) Satya Nadella's claims that Microsoft effectively controls all the...
Mar 22, 2024•57 min•Season 1Ep. 277
Suhail Doshi is the CEO and founder of Playground, an AI image generation and editing software company. Doshi joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss where the next generative AI breakthroughs might come from. Tune in to hear Doshi's insights on the innovation within language models, image generation, video, and 3D creation. We also cover the business opportunities the competitive landscape among tech giants like Google, Meta, and Microsoft, and the debate around AI's true capabilities in unders...
Mar 20, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 276
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) AI sales leaders at Google and Amazon tempering expectations 2) Adobe as a practical example of AI hype vs. reality 3) Does Adobe belong in the magnificent 7? 4) Gartner predicts traditional search volume drops 25% by 2026 5) OpenAI video generator Sora is coming out later this year 6) OpenAI CTO Mira Murati didn't know what data Sora trained on 7) Murati address NYTimes report that he helped oust Sam ...
Mar 15, 2024•59 min•Season 1Ep. 275
Mike Solana is the chief marketing officer at Founders Fund and editor-in-chief of Pirate Wires. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss the potential forced sale or ban of TikTok as the U.S. congress voted to pass a bill requiring it. Join us for an in-depth discussion of the arguements for and against banning the app, and how big money is influencing some of the key players. We also talk about Elon Musk, the state of X, Temu and Shein, the power of social media algorithms, and Devin, the fi...
Mar 13, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 274
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) OpenAI's leadership in flux as Mira Murati named in NYTimes report about Sam Altman's ouster 2) Where's Ilya Sutskever? 3) OpenAI reveals that open source was never so important in Musk lawsuit rebuttal 4) The AI field is wide open now! 5) Anthropic's new bot realized it was being tested 6) Is AI close to sentience? 7) Apple sales drop 24% in China as Huawei surges 8) Apple fined 1.9 billion euro for a...
Mar 08, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 273
Ryan Petersen is the Founder and Co-CEO of Flexport, a supply chain technology company. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss whether his company is competing with Amazon, his perspective on Amazon culture, and why ex-Amazon leader Dave Clark didn't work out as CEO. We also discuss the Houthis attacks in the Red Sea's impact on global shipping, de-globalization, cargo theft, and inflation. Tune in for a wide ranging, deep conversation about the state of logistics and the world economy. Lear...
Mar 06, 2024•53 min•Season 1Ep. 272
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) Elon Musk suing OpenAI for breaching its founding agreement 2) What can Musk accomplish with the lawsuit 3) The SEC looks into OpenAI’s conduct 4) Microsoft funds OpenAI competition MistralAI 5) Does OpenAi’s chaos make Google look good? 6) The chaos inside Google’s organization that led to its Gemini 7) Is Sundar Pichai the right leader for Google? 8) The death of the Apple car 9) Apple’s generative A...
Mar 01, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 271
Bryan Catanzaro is NVIDIA's VP of applied deep learning research. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss why NVIDIA is building more than just chips, examining its software and algorithms that help tech companies build and run AI models. Join us for a conversation about how NVIDIA sees the world, what's led to its success, and what makes it indispensable. In the second half, we discuss how Bryan helped kick off NVIDIA's push into AI, from the very start to where it is today. --- --- Enjoying...
Feb 28, 2024•47 min•Season 1Ep. 270
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) NVIDIA's stock market surge 2) How NVIDIA software is behind its lock on the market 3) Is the economy saved, now? 4) Reddit's IPO 5) Is Reddit a good ad business? 6) Reddit's AI licensing play 7) Sam Altman role as Reddit's third largest shareholder 8) Was Google Gemini's image generation mess up a product of woke culture or bad AI? 9) Was Gemini's image generation an emergent runaway capability 10) Go...
Feb 23, 2024•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 269
Dennis Crowley is the co-founder of Foursquare. He joins Big Technology Podcast to talk about what made the internet fun, why it's lost some of its magic, and how to restore it. He also introduces a new app, called BeeBot, that will deliver short, contextual audio messages to you as you walk around cities. Stay tuned for the second half where we discuss whether Web3 can still work, how AI changes things, and whether Crowley's buying a Vision Pro. Listen for a fun, energetic conversation about th...
Feb 21, 2024•51 min•Season 1Ep. 268
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) OpenAI's new video generation model Sora 2) Will Sora challenge Hollywood? 3) Does Sora understand physics or is it just spitting back video? 4) ChatGPT's declining user numbers 5) Gemini 1.5 6) Meta's new conceptual model of the world 7) Zuckerberg's Vision Pro review 8) Temu dominates the Super Bowl 9) Tesla's fatal, potentially self driving crash 10) A financial advice columnist put $50,000 in a sho...
Feb 16, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 267
