Cryptocurrencies have exploded in 2017. But while prices are surging, transactions are facing long delays because the networks are flooded with traffic. This is the problem facing the Ethereum network, which, along with its digital currency ether, has quickly become the world's No. 2 cryptocurrency after Bitcoin. And one man, Vlad Zamfir, has a plan to fix it. This week, Bloomberg's Matthew Leising and Brad Stone speak to Zamfir about his big dreams for Ethereum and how his project (codenamed Ca...
Dec 19, 2017•24 min
From a young age, Cyrus Massoumi knew he wanted to become rich one day. In 2012, he figured out how: by creating an inflammatory, hyper-partisan news site that used Facebook to make its articles go viral. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Sarah Frier and Aki Ito talk to Cyrus about how MrConservative.com's success sparked a frenzy of other sites like it. Cyrus watched the phenomenon snowball—until one day he realized he had created a monster. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Dec 12, 2017•27 min
When Francisco Riordan suspected his company of breaking the law last year, he secretly reached out to federal regulators. His actions helped set in motion events that left Rothenberg Ventures subject to a government investigation and multiple lawsuits -- and according to Francisco, cost him his own job. This week, we're re-broadcasting this May episode, in which Francisco first went public with his role as a whistleblower. At the end, you'll hear a recent conversation between Decrypted's Aki It...
Dec 01, 2017•34 min
For a decade, Ken Sena has had a classic Wall Street job as an equity analyst, which means he researches companies to help investors decide which stocks to buy and sell. Last year, he met developer Bryan Healey, who helped build the AI assistant Alexa at Amazon. The two of them embarked on a curious challenge: to make a computerized version of Ken that can dole out its own stock recommendations. This week on Decrypted, Bloomberg Technology's Alistair Barr and Julie Verhage meet Ken and Bryan's c...
Nov 21, 2017•24 min
A few months ago, Bloomberg Technology's Adam Satariano found an unflattering video of himself going viral on Instagram. Someone had filmed him riding the train, furiously typing on his phone. That discovery and his quest to get the video deleted got Adam thinking about the changing nature of online privacy. This week on Decrypted, we meet the man behind SubwayCreatures, the popular Instagram account that briefly featured the video of Adam. As internet companies face growing pressure to police m...
Nov 14, 2017•24 min
Fake news, Russia and the U.S. election: It's been one of the biggest stories over the last year. Last week, it all came to a head as Congress summoned representatives from Facebook, Google and Twitter to explain how Russia used their platforms to sway the minds of American voters. This week on Decrypted, Bloomberg Technology's Sarah Frier, Gerrit De Vynck and Joshua Brustein discuss how we got here and what consequences these tech giants could face as lawmakers prepare to take action. See omnys...
Nov 08, 2017•25 min
In 2014, WeWork told its investors that its next big thing would be a product called WeLive: a dorm-like apartment that applies the company's success in providing office space to the home life. Investors were told there would be 34 WeLive locations by the end of 2017; today, there are just two. This week on Decrypted, Bloomberg Technology's Ellen Huet spends five nights at a WeLive apartment in New York to figure out why growth has come so slow, and what that means for the future of this $20 bil...
Nov 02, 2017•20 min
Back in May, we brought you an episode about the life of Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son, who at that time had just raised his $93 billion tech fund. This week, we'll play you a wide-ranging conversation that Son had for a Bloomberg TV series called The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations. Among the topics Son discusses: the dot-com crash in which he lost much of his wealth, the 45-minute conversation he had with one investor that led to a $45 billion commitment, and his vision ...
Oct 25, 2017•21 min
At the center of the crisis enveloping the world's most valuable startup is Uber's mounting legal problems: The ride-hailing giant today faces at least five criminal probes from the U.S. Justice Department, as well as dozens of lawsuits. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Eric Newcomer and Brad Stone explain how things got so bad. They'll also discuss the challenge ahead as the company's new CEO scrambles to get Uber back on stable footing. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Oct 17, 2017•27 min
In 2015, Iran signed a landmark deal with global superpowers. An end to Iran's isolation pointed to a bright future for the country's budding tech scene -- but then, Donald Trump, a vocal critic of the nuclear agreement, won the U.S. presidency and once-eager foreign investors got spooked. This week on Decrypted, Bloomberg's Ladane Nasseri visits the founders of a homegrown e-commerce startup called Koodakoo as well as several other companies. These young entrepreneurs are awaiting Trump's next ...
Oct 09, 2017•23 min
Many of Silicon Valley's most celebrated companies build software -- but these days, the startup everyone's talking about is Stance, which makes socks. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Sarah McBride visits Stance to see why venture capitalists have poured $110 million into a business that has little to do with technology. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Oct 03, 2017•24 min
A devastating cyberattack on Equifax has compromised critically sensitive information on 143 million U.S. consumers. While we won't know the full repercussions for years, this week on Decrypted, Bloomberg Technology's Lizette Chapman explores the worst possible things that could happen to these people whose information was stolen. You may think that identity theft ends after a couple canceled credit cards, but Lizette speaks to victims who spent years rebuilding their shattered finances and live...
Sep 26, 2017•22 min
As news continues to break about Russia's attempts to influence and hack the U.S. election, this week we're re-airing an episode from 2016 about how investigators traced the breach of the Democratic National Committee's email servers to Russian spies. At the end of the episode, Brad and Bloomberg Technology's Jordan Robertson discuss everything that's happened since then. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sep 19, 2017•28 min
Despite tremendous advances over the last decade, electric cars have yet to go mainstream. Even once Tesla ramps up production of its Model 3 cars, one obstacle will remain: a lack of infrastructure lining America's roads. This week on Decrypted, Bloomberg Technology's Pia Gadkari dives deep into the companies, led by Tesla, that are trying to tackle this problem -- by pouring millions of dollars into building a network of charging stations. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Sep 14, 2017•24 min
In China, parents are desperately seeking good teachers for their children. A number of local tech startups are meeting that demand; one is even connecting them with American tutors halfway across the world. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Peter Elstrom explores VIPKid's data-driven approach to online tutoring, to see what it means for Chinese students, as well as the U.S. teachers who are finding a new source of employment. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Sep 06, 2017•24 min
The year is 2005, the company is Apple. The iPod is a smash hit, but then-CEO Steve Jobs decides it's time to cannibalize the company's star product with a gamble: a smartphone. A decade after those phones reached the hands of the first consumers and changed the history of computing, Bloomberg Technology's Mark Gurman goes deep behind the scenes with the people who raced to get that original iPhone ready. On the eve of the product's unveiling, a crisis almost derailed the entire project. Mark an...
Aug 29, 2017•31 min
We hear a lot about the approaching end of the fossil fuel era. But as various companies work on wind and solar, there's a group of scientists quietly working on another method of generating electricity, in the lab that once created the atomic bomb. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Jing Cao visits the researchers who are smashing hydrogen atoms together in a process called nuclear fusion. They say they're on the brink of a major milestone, but they face an age-old problem: not enough funding. S...
Aug 22, 2017•26 min
A sailor and a windsurfing champion are trying to crack your morning commute with a new kind of transportation device: a zero-emissions boat that looks like it flies above the water. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Marie Mawad and Aki Ito take a look at the challenges that lie ahead for this startup, now that the company has developed a working prototype in France. This follows last week's episode on another entrepreneur's lifelong passion for flying cars. See omnystudio.com/listener for priva...
Aug 15, 2017•20 min
Silicon Valley currently has a serious case of flying car fever, but this isn't the first time enthusiasm for these vehicles has gripped the industry. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Alistair Barr and Aki Ito visit the man who's spent his entire life trying to turn his Jetson-like vision into reality. It's a story of unwavering and maybe even irrational optimism that's cost Paul Moller more than $100 million and led him to declare bankruptcy and face allegations of fraud. See omnystudio.com/li...
Aug 08, 2017•24 min
Over the last few weeks, several woman have come forward with their accounts of being harassed in the tech industry. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Aki Ito and Sarah McBride hear from a woman who's never spoken publicly about her experience. The episode also includes interviews with multiple women who were instrumental in exposing what many have called Silicon Valley's "open secret" and recount what their lives have been like since sharing their stories. Please note: This episode includes dis...
Jul 27, 2017•24 min
One of President Donald Trump's biggest priorities is to bring manufacturing jobs home, and advances in industrial automation are making it cheaper and easier to do that. But a plant full of robots requires fewer workers. This week Bloomberg Technology's Alex Webb takes a look at whether these factories of the future could still give a boost to communities in the heartland. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jul 24, 2017•20 min
A few months ago, a startup called Meta started clearing out the computer monitors that sat on employees' desks -- asking them to instead use the company's augmented reality headsets, which overlay holograms on top of the real world. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Selina Wang visits Meta to see how its workers have fared in this transition. Could desktop computers soon become as outdated as typewriters? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Jul 18, 2017•22 min
Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab's software is everywhere in the U.S., keeping ordinary consumers as well as banks and power plants safe from cyber attacks. But some within the U.S. government are getting worried about the Russian company's connections with its own government, questioning whether Kaspersky Lab can be trusted to safeguard key parts of the U.S. digital infrastructure. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Jordan Robertson reveals details from his investigation outlining Kaspersky Lab's conn...
Jul 11, 2017•23 min
In January, we brought you the story of a cyber weapons deal involving the government of the West African nation Mauritania. It was a deal that ultimately fell apart. But while the Indian businessman brokering the deal managed to walk away with about a million dollars, Mauritanian officials have been holding hostage one of his bodyguards for nearly two years. If you haven't heard the original episode, go back and listen. Because this week, Bloomberg Technology's Jordan Robertson and Aki Ito have...
Jul 05, 2017•17 min
A new generation of fitness gadgets is just starting to reach consumers, and they do so much more than track your activity -- they actually tell you what to do, just like a personal trainer. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Aki Ito tests 17 devices and sees if any of them are as good as the real thing: working out with a human trainer. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jun 27, 2017•27 min
One day, driving a truck could look pretty similar to a call center job. From a desk in an office, "drivers" will remotely monitor one or several trucks as they haul cargo around the country. Or at least that's the future that Starsky Robotics envisions. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Max Chafkin takes a ride down a Florida highway in a truck being driven by a computer to see how close we really are to seeing self-driving technology roll out in the real world. He and Brad will also discuss th...
Jun 21, 2017•28 min
On November 22, 2015, 47-year-old Victor Collins was found in a hot tub, apparently strangled and drowned. Investigators seized an Amazon Echo device at the scene of the crime, hoping the voice-activated speaker may have captured key evidence. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Nico Grant speaks to friends of the victim as well as digital forensics and privacy experts to put this new kind of evidence under the spotlight. As we surround ourselves with more and more of these internet-connected devi...
Jun 12, 2017•25 min
Charles Chao knew his social media platform had potential. But the parent company of Weibo, often referred to as the Twitter of China, was getting slammed in the stock market. That's when Chao decided to go all in. This week, Bloomberg Technology's David Ramli meets the man who cobbled together much of his personal wealth, and took out a loan for a quarter of a billion dollars, to bet on his business' rise just as others were predicting its decline. The gamble paid off, and Chao today is on trac...
Jun 05, 2017•27 min
Masayoshi Son is already one of the Japan's most successful businessmen, and now he's making his biggest gamble yet: To invest a record $100 billion in the technology that will power our future. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Peter Elstrom and Brad Stone trace the life of the billionaire, from his childhood as an immigrant and outsider in Southern Japan to the huge risks that Son took to grow SoftBank into an ever larger company. Peter and Brad also play some old tapes of Son from 30 years ag...
May 30, 2017•29 min
In the U.S., free content -- whether that's cooking tutorials on YouTube or the latest news on Twitter -- is supported by advertising. In China, however, companies have succeeded in getting people to directly pay for what they consume, opening up a new source of revenue for the booming app industry and lucrative opportunities for content creators. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Selina Wang speaks to a former magazine editor who has earned millions of dollars from the weekly column that he pub...
May 22, 2017•26 min
