Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) Russia funding the political YouTube network Tenet Media 2) Should the commentators have known better? 3) How big does the influence operation go? 4) Is Ranjan being paid off by a foreign government? 5) Twitter suspended in Brazil 6) Was Elon Musk right in standing up to Brazil? 7) More on the amorphous nature of online popularity 8) Talk Tuah 9) Ilya Sutskever raises $1 billion from a16z and others 10...
Sep 06, 2024•56 min•Season 1Ep. 326
Johan Hari is a New York Times bestselling author and has a new book, Magic Pill, about his experience with weight loss drugs. Hari joins Big Technology to discuss the impact of Ozempic on our relationship with food and the economy. Tune in to hear how these medications work, their benefits, and their potential risks. We also cover the science behind these drugs, economic implications, and ethical considerations. Hit play for an in-depth conversation on the future of weight loss drugs and their ...
Sep 04, 2024•52 min•Season 1Ep. 326
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) OpenAI Raising at a $100 billion valuation 2) Is Investing in OpenAI a good bet? 3) Why is Thrive leading the round? 4) ChatGPT usage doubles 5) MetaAI reaches 40 billion daily active users 6) Amazon leadership says coding will soon be done by bots and not humans 7) Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested and charged 8) Should Durov have been arrested or fined? 9) NVIDIA's earnings are just okay --- Enjo...
Aug 30, 2024•57 min•Season 1Ep. 325
Eric Markowitz is a partner at Night View Capital and a long-term focused investor. Eric joins Big Technology to discuss his harrowing brush with death and how it transformed his perspective on investing and life. Tune in to hear how a mysterious brain abscess forced Eric to confront his mortality and reevaluate his approach to work, relationships, and long-term thinking. We also cover the importance of quality over quantity, the dangers of stress, and how to sustainably implement life changes a...
Aug 28, 2024•36 min•Season 1Ep. 324
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) Alex's trip to the Balkans 2) China's influence in the region 3) Meta and Snap AR glasses battle 4) Are smart glasses stylish enough 5) Perplexity's plan to run ads 6) Eric Schmidt's disparaging remarks about Google 7) Is Google really behind on AI? 8) Will the U.S. government really break up big tech? --- Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice. F...
Aug 23, 2024•50 min•Season 1Ep. 323
Billy McFarland is the founder of Fyre Festival. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss what he learned about social media, investing, and prison during his ordeal at the helm at the world's most infamous music festival. Tune in for McFarland's clear-headed insights on what he did wrong, how social media sells a version of the world that is not there, how inflating his numbers changed investors' approach to his business, and what ten months on solitary confinement does to a man. Tune in for ...
Aug 21, 2024•57 min•Season 1Ep. 322
Nate Silver is a statistician, election prognosticator, and bestselling author. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss his reporting on extreme risk takers, and why the seem to be winning. Tune in to hear Silver's theory on how society bifurcates into the risk-forward, probability oriented thinkers (The River) and the safety seeking, status oriented community (The Village). In this episode, we discuss poker, sports betting, effective altruism, VC, AI research, and existential threads to huma...
Aug 14, 2024•1 hr 17 min•Season 1Ep. 320
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) Wall Street's roller coaster week 2) Does market turmoil change AI investment? 3) The Yen trade 4) NVIDIA's stock market drop 5) Warren Buffet sells Apple 6) OpenAI loses more key leaders 7) Is OpenAI struggling to fundraise? 8) Are LLMs hitting a wall? 9) Google loses antitrust case 10) Does this hurt Google? Or Apple? 11) U.S. government deterrence restored? 12) Do we actually need new antirust laws ...
Aug 09, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 319
Nick Bostrom is a renowned philosopher and bestselling author of "Superintelligence" and "Deep Utopia." He joins Big Technology to discuss the potential outcomes of advanced artificial intelligence, from existential risks to utopian possibilities. Tune in to hear Bostrom's thoughts on how humanity might navigate the transition to a world of superintelligent AI and what life could look like in a technologically "solved" world. We also cover the evolution of AI safety concerns, the concept of effe...
Aug 07, 2024•40 min•Season 1Ep. 318
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) The week's market selloff 2) Consumer spending declines and other negative economic factors 3) Starbucks as a economic barometer 4) Favorite boba 5) AI spending comes under scrutiny 6) Big Tech earnings performance 7) NVIDIA's resilience 8) Apple Intelligence beta arrives 9) Siri is still bad 10) Ranjan depressed about Siri being bad 11) Review of OpenAI's ChatGPT 4o voice edition 12) Friend dot com la...
Aug 02, 2024•58 min•Season 1Ep. 317
Danny Shapiro is the Vice President of Automotive at NVIDIA. He joins Big Technology to discuss the current state of autonomous driving technology, its future, and NVIDIA's role. Tune in to hear how NVIDIA is pushing the boundaries of AI and simulation to make self-driving cars safer and more reliable. We also cover the challenges of full autonomy, NVIDIA's broader play in the automotive ecosystem, and how generative AI is transforming the industry. Hit play for an insider's look at the cutting-...
Jul 31, 2024•37 min•Season 1Ep. 316
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) Kamala in, Biden out 2) Kamala's tech agenda 3) The importance of Lina Khan 4) Do VCs regret backing Trump after the past week's developments 5) J.D. Vance couch meme 6) Twitter at the center of the story 7) AI CapEx goes wild 8) Google's resilience through the first AI wave 9) OpenAI launches a search engine, SearchGPT 10) Elon's AI supercomputer 11) DeepMind's math-solving AI 12) Meta's need for open...
Jul 26, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 315
Thomas Dohmke is the CEO of Github. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss the state of AI-assisted coding, and whether the rest of the economy can see benefits similar to software engineers using coding 'copilots.' We also discuss how AI assistance can help individual developers build whatever's on their mind, and whether we'll see $1 billion dollar startups built by just one person. Tune in the for the second half where we discuss the next set of AI models, how engineering jobs change when...
Jul 24, 2024•51 min•Season 1Ep. 314
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) VCs and Elon going to Trump 2) The policy issues swinging VCs to Trump 3) The case for an against big tech acquisitions 4) Electric vehicle policy as a flashpoint 5) Anti-woke common ground between VCs and Trump 6) Is it a good bet? 7) Goldman Sachs pours some cold water on the GenAI hype and spending 8) Anthropic starts a new venture fund 9) Warner Bros. Discovery potential spinoff plan 10) Using AI t...
Jul 19, 2024•50 min•Season 1Ep. 313
Sebastian Siemiatkowski is the CEO and co-founder of Klarna. Siemiatkowski joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss the company's aggressive efforts to implement AI across its operation, including in customer service where it says the technology is now doing the work of 700 people. We also discuss how Klarna is using generative AI in marketing, and whether it can do the work of strategists or simply discreet tasks. Stay tuned for the second half where we discuss how Klarna is using ChatGPT enterp...
Jul 17, 2024•58 min•Season 1Ep. 312
Tom Dotan from the Wall Street Journal joins us for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) What slow growing GenAI consumer usage says about the field 2) OpenAI's five levels of AI sophistication 3) Why enterprise rollouts of AI technology are moving slow 4) Is AI a startup game or scaled player only discipline 5) How small models fit in 6) Bing's failed run after Google 7) Sequoia's $600 billion question on AI 8) Can we use leftover GPUs to break out of the simulation 9) Mic...
Jul 12, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 311
Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice. --- Matt Wood is the VP of AI Products at Amazon Web Services (AWS). Wood joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss the current state and future potential of AI, according to Amazon. Tune in to hear insights on how customers are adopting AI, the importance of model choice and specialization, and the evolution of AI in the near-term. We also cover AWS' AI platform, Amazon's Alexa assistant, and the cultu...
Jul 10, 2024•53 min•Season 1Ep. 310
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) Why the Hawk Tuah Meme broke through 2) Evolution of the internet from the 'nerd internet' to the 'Zynternet' or 'bro internet' 3) The 'For You' recommendation system had turned the internet into a mass appeal machine vs. niche 4) Zuck's fourth of july water sports moment is indicative of the change 5) Raw dogging flights 6) OpenAI hacked 6) NYTimes rips off Dwarkesh Patel's Podcast 7) Figma's Apple We...
Jul 05, 2024•50 min•Season 1Ep. 309
William Saunders is an ex-OpenAI Superallignment team member. Lawrence Lessig is a professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School. The two come on to discuss what's troubling ex-OpenAI safety team members. We discuss whether the Saudners' former team saw something secret and damning inside OpenAI, or whether it was a general cultural issue. And then, we talk about the 'Right to Warn' a policy that would give AI insiders a right to share concerning developments with third parties without f...
Jul 03, 2024•47 min•Season 1Ep. 208
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) Companies that bought AI services are struggling to make them work 2) Is an AI 'trough of disillusionment' coming? 3) Consultants are cashing in on the AI boom 4) Is consultants' heavy involvement in AI work good? 5) Examining Perplexity's IP issues more closely 6) Suno gets sued 7) Waymo's massive, underappreciated expansion in San Francisco 8) Waymo vs. Tesla - who wins? 9) Amazon hits a $2 trillion ...
Jun 28, 2024•53 min•Season 1Ep. 207
Michael Batnick is managing partner at Ritholtz Wealth Management and co-host of The Compound and Friends Podcast. Batnick joins Big Technology Podcast for a conversation that asks all the questions about NVIDIA's historic run. We cover the valuation, volatility, competition, chances to keep going, and AI fatigue. We also ask whether NVIDIA could give up its gains just as fast as it built them, whether it will become an Apple-like fixture in portfolios, and how algorithmic trading might play a r...
Jun 26, 2024•41 min•Season 1Ep. 306
Reed Albergotti is the tech editor at Semafor. He joins Big Technology Podcast to break down the week's news. We cover: 1) NVIDIA temporarily becoming the most valuable publicly traded company 2) Is NVIDIA a bubble? 3) What might disrupt NVIDIA? 4) Ilya Sustkever founds Safe Superintelligence Inc. 5) Who's funding Ilya? 6) Will SSI amount to anything? 6) OpenAI might become a public benefit company 7) The state of DeepMind's merger with Google Brain 8) Mustafa Suleyman's entry to Microsoft and h...
Jun 21, 2024•55 min•Season 1Ep. 205
Peter Diamandis is the founder and executive chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, a New York Times bestselling author, and host of the Moonshot Podcast. He joins Big Technology Podcast for a fun, wide-ranging conversation touching on his belief around AI, his friendship with Elon Musk, Abundance and happiness, and how we can live longer, including an incoming lifespan explosion. Tune in for a fun, thought provoking conversation that covers a lot of ground on today's crucial topics. --- Enjoying Bi...
Jun 19, 2024•53 min•Season 1Ep. 304
Mark Gurman is Chief Correspondent at Bloomberg. He stops by Big Technology Poddcast for a brief recap of the week's Apple news, including its no-money deal with OpenAI. Ranjan Roy from Margins is also back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover: 1) Alex's Visit to NVIDIA 2) The Gurman interview - which covers a) Apple + OpenAI b) The stock market reaction to WWDC c) Apple's Robotics future 3) Ranjan and Alex react to the Gurman interview 4) OpenAI's relative strength after ...
Jun 14, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 1Ep. 303
M.G. Siegler of Spyglass is back to recap Apple's big AI-themed WWDC event and look ahead to AI's broader potential moving forward. Tune for an in-depth analysis of Apple's new AI features, and what they say about the strengths and limitations of the current AI models. We cover whether the new features will lead to an iPhone upgrade cycle, the stock market's reaction, Elon Musk getting angry about the event, why OpenAI played a smaller role than many anticipated, Apple's potential robotics futur...
Jun 12, 2024•51 min•Season 1Ep. 302
Alex Kantrowitz joins on site from WWDC, where Apple just made its big AI announcement. Tune in for a quick recap of the event's news and the implications. We cover Apple Intelligence, Genmoji, Writing Tools, & more. And what it meens: 1) Apple needing to go bold 2) Opening the device up to take advantage of the next 18 months of AI development 3) The OpenAI parternship 4) How Google reacts to this 5) How Microsoft reacts to this 6) The financial implications. Did you like this episode? Any ...
Jun 10, 2024•20 min•Season 1Ep. 301
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) Apple's WWDC AI preview 2) Apple's willingness to change its operating system with AI 3) Were Humane and Rabbit on the right track with bad execution? 4) Will the market react well to WWDC? 5) Apple is going to put cameras in AirPods? + Alex's experience with the Ray-Ban Metas 6) NVIDIA's $3 trillion market cap 7) NVIDIA surpasses Apple for a minute in valuation 8) Are we at the NVIDIA top? 9) Roaring ...
Jun 07, 2024•57 min•Season 1Ep. 300
Ben Smith and Nayeema Raza host Mixed Signals, a new media podcast from Semafor. And Joe Marchese is the general & build partner at Human Ventures. The three join Big Technology Podcast for a VC + Journalist conversation on whether the news industry can survive its dealings with generative AI tech providers, like OpenAI, after several publications inked multi-million dollar content deals. Tune in for a conversation that explores whether the news industry is setting itself up for a repeat of ...
Jun 05, 2024•53 min•Season 1Ep. 299
Walt Mossberg is a legendary tech journalist and longtime columnist for the Wall Street Journal. This is a preview of our premium Big Tech War Stories Podcast where Mossberg joins to discuss how he formed connections with industry titans like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos, and what drove their thinking and strategies. In this preview we cover Jobs, discussing his optimism, focus, and unending curiosity that led to long hours of conversation with Mossberg via phone. We also discuss the r...
Jun 03, 2024•37 min•Season 1Ep. 298
Brian McCullough, host the Techmeme Ride Home podcast, joins us our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) OpenAI teasing GPT-5 2) Or wait, was it GPT-6? 3) Satya Nadella speaks with Sam Altman about OpenAI's Apple partnership 4) How long will OpenAI and Microsoft be best buds? 5) Does OpenAI benefit by diversifying partnerships? 6) Is Apple going to go all-in on AI at WWDC? 7) What the new Siri might look like? 8) OpenAI's ex-board members speak up about Altman firing episode 9)...
May 31, 2024•59 min•Season 1Ep. 297
