Tech Talks Daily - podcast cover

Tech Talks Daily

Neil C. Hughestechtalksnetwork.com
If every company is now a tech company and digital transformation is a journey rather than a destination, how do you keep up with the relentless pace of technological change? Every day, Tech Talks Daily brings you insights from the brightest minds in tech, business, and innovation, breaking down complex ideas into clear, actionable takeaways. Hosted by Neil C. Hughes, Tech Talks Daily explores how emerging technologies such as AI, cybersecurity, cloud computing, fintech, quantum computing, Web3, and more are shaping industries and solving real-world challenges in modern businesses. Through candid conversations with industry leaders, CEOs, Fortune 500 executives, startup founders, and even the occasional celebrity, Tech Talks Daily uncovers the trends driving digital transformation and the strategies behind successful tech adoption. But this isn't just about buzzwords. We go beyond the hype to demystify the biggest tech trends and determine their real-world impact. From cybersecurity and blockchain to AI sovereignty, robotics, and post-quantum cryptography, we explore the measurable difference these innovations can make. Whether improving security, enhancing customer experiences, or driving business growth, we also investigate the ROI of cutting-edge tech projects, asking the tough questions about what works, what doesn't, and how businesses can maximize their investments. Whether you're a business leader, IT professional, or simply curious about technology's role in our lives, you'll find engaging discussions that challenge perspectives, share diverse viewpoints, and spark new ideas. New episodes are released daily, 365 days a year, breaking down complex ideas into clear, actionable takeaways around technology and the future of business.
Last refreshed:
Follow this podcast in the Metacast mobile app to refresh it and see new episodes.
Download Metacast podcast app
Podcasts are better in Metacast mobile app
Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more

Episodes

3434: t3rn, Interoperability, and the Next Wave of Real Adoption

Here's the thing. We have had brilliant ideas in Web3 for years, along with better tooling and plenty of enthusiasm, yet adoption still feels slower than it should be. In my conversation with Maciej Baj, founder of t3rn, we got under the skin of why that is and what it might take to change the pace. His starting point is simple to state and hard to deliver at scale: make cross-chain interactions feel seamless for users and predictable for developers. If you can do that, the door opens to practic...

Sep 28, 202532 minEp. 3434

3433: AI Trading Without Lag: EZ Trading Computers on Building the Right Setup342

When we think about what separates winning traders from those who struggle, we usually picture strategies, indicators, or a bit of insider know-how. But what if the biggest edge has been sitting on your desk all along? In this episode, I sit down with Eddie Z, also known as Russ Hazelcorn, the founder of EZ Trading Computers and EZBreakouts. With more than 37 years of experience as a trader, stockbroker, technologist, and educator, Eddie has built his career around one mission: helping traders c...

Sep 27, 202538 minEp. 3433

3432: GoTo on Making AI Practical for Small and Mid Sized Businesses

Most conversations about AI are still caught up in the spectacle. We see demos, marvel at copilots, and argue about the latest big model. But what happens when you strip away the hype and focus on AI that simply works? That is exactly the perspective Olga Lagunova brings to this episode. As Chief Product and Technology Officer at GoTo, she has one goal in mind: make AI useful, practical, and almost invisible. Olga believes the real test of AI is whether it integrates seamlessly into workflows. I...

Sep 26, 202542 minEp. 3432

3431: AI and Data-Driven Manufacturing with IDA Ireland and Eli Lilly and Company

I wanted this conversation to do two things at once. First, ground the hype in real practice. Second, show how a small country can punch well above its weight by connecting industry, academia, and government with purpose. With Chantelle Kiernan from IDA Ireland and Stephen Flanagan from Eli Lilly and Company, we explored what digital transformation really looks like on the factory floor in Ireland, why talent is the engine behind it, and how cross-sector collaboration is turning ideas into measu...

Sep 25, 202531 minEp. 3431

3430: Broadridge AI, NYFIX, and the New Data Strategy for Financial Services

What does it really mean to future-proof financial data? That's the question at the heart of my conversation with George Rosenberger, General Manager of NYFIX at Broadridge. George has spent his career moving through every corner of the capital markets, from trading desks to broker-dealers, and now into the software side where he oversees order routing, post-trade matching, and the adoption of new AI tools. His perspective is uniquely positioned between the history of financial markets and their...

Sep 24, 202522 minEp. 3430

3429: How Credit Karma Scales GenAI to Power 60 Billion Predictions a Day

What does it take to deliver personalized financial guidance to more than 140 million people every single day? That is the question I put to Wan Agus, Head of Engineering at Intuit Credit Karma, in this episode of Tech Talks Daily. Most of us open the Credit Karma app to check our credit score, look at a loan option, or browse for a better credit card. What we rarely consider is the technology running behind the curtain. Wan revealed that his teams are powering more than 60 billion daily AI pred...

Sep 23, 202542 minEp. 3429

3428: Building Trust in AI: Hitachi Vantara's Vision for Governance

AI is quickly moving from boardroom buzzword to boardroom headache. Enterprises are waking up to the fact that bringing large language models in-house is not just about performance or cost, but about control, accountability, and trust. In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Octavian Tanase, Chief Product Officer at Hitachi Vantara, to unpack what this shift really means for business and technology leaders. Octavian explains why governance has become the defining challenge of the AI...

Sep 22, 202523 minEp. 3428

3427: Can Smarter Compression Help Save the Planet? CompressionX Think so

What if the way we store data is shaping the planet's future? That thought has been on my mind ever since attending the IT Press Tour in Amsterdam, where I first connected with today's guest. With global data creation forecast to hit 510 zettabytes by 2030, and data centers already consuming staggering amounts of power, the conversation is no longer about whether change is needed but about how we approach it. Joining me on the podcast is Nicholas Stavrinou, co-founder of CompressionX, a company ...

Sep 21, 202529 minEp. 3427

3426: Aura Technology at TechSummit25: XDR, Secure Edge, Real Outcomes

I recorded this episode at Barracuda TechSummit25 in Alpbach, Austria, a mountain village that looks like a postcard and hosts some of the most grounded security conversations you will hear all year. My guest is Richard Flanders, Commercial Director at Aura Technology, a managed service provider on the south coast of England that supports public sector organisations and tightly regulated commercial clients. Richard arrived as part of Barracuda's Partner Advisory Board, which means he spends as m...

Sep 20, 202519 minEp. 3426

3425: Barracuda XDR: From Football Playbooks to Home Alone Tactics

I recorded this conversation at Barracuda TechSummit25 in Alpbach, Austria, where the mountains feel close enough to touch and the discussions get very real very quickly. My guests are Adam Khan, VP of Global Security Operations at Barracuda XDR, and Eric Russo, Director of SOC Defensive Security. Together they run the teams that watch, interpret, and act when attacks move across email, identity, network, cloud, and endpoints. Their keynote used the language of sport to make sense of modern defe...

Sep 19, 202536 minEp. 3425

3424: Barracuda TechSummit 25: Secure Today, Ready Tomorrow

I recorded this conversation in Alpbach, Austria, a village that looks like a postcard and hosts a very serious tech gathering. TechSummit25 is Barracuda's deeply technical event, and it shows. The rooms are packed with solution architects, product managers, and engineers comparing notes with customers who run these systems every day. It is the kind of environment where product direction and real-world pain points meet over a coffee, then head straight into a lab to test an idea. My guest today ...

Sep 18, 202525 minEp. 3424

3423: Johnson Controls Explains How to Cut Data Center Cooling Energy by 40%

In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Todd Grabowski from Johnson Controls to unpack the physics, products, and design choices shaping the next generation of data center cooling. It's a practical conversation that moves from chips and compressors to water, power, and land constraints, and what it really takes to keep modern infrastructure reliable at scale. Todd brings three decades of experience to the table and a front-row view of how Johnson Controls and the York brand have kept ...

Sep 17, 202524 minEp. 3423

3422: Meet Symphion and the Print Fleet Cybersecurity as a Service

I've spent years talking about endpoint security, yet printers rarely enter the conversation. Today, that blind spot takes center stage. I'm joined by Jim LaRoe, CEO of Symphion, to unpack why printers now represent one of the most exposed corners of the enterprise and what can be done about it. Jim's team protects fleets that range from a few hundred devices to tens of thousands, and the picture he paints is stark. In many organizations, printers make up 20 to 30 percent of endpoints, and almos...

Sep 16, 202522 minEp. 3422

Marketing Intelligence After Cookies: How Funnel Turns Data Into Decisions

Marketing teams used to have a simple enough job: follow the click, count the conversions, and shift the budget accordingly. But that world is gone. GDPR, iOS restrictions, and browser-level changes have left most attribution models broken or unreliable. So what now? In this episode, I sat down with Fredrik Skansen, CEO of Funnel, to unpack how marketing intelligence actually works in a world where data is partial, journeys are fragmented, and the old models don't hold. Since founding Funnel in ...

Sep 15, 202530 minEp. 3421

Why FeatureOps Might Be the Future of Software Delivery

I invited Egil Østhus to unpack a simple idea that tends to get lost in release day pressure. DevOps gets code to production quickly, but users experience features, not pipelines. Egil is the founder of Unleash, an open source feature management platform with close to 30 million downloads, and he argues that the next step is FeatureOps. It is a mindset and a set of practices that separate deployment from release, so teams can place code in production, light it up for a small cohort, learn, and o...

Sep 14, 202549 minEp. 3420

From Bots To Agents: Building Trustworthy Autonomy With Hakkōda, an IBM Company

I invited Atalia Horenshtien to unpack a topic many leaders are wrestling with right now. Everyone is talking about AI agents, yet most teams are still living with rule based bots, brittle scripts, and a fair bit of anxiety about handing decisions to software. Atalia has lived through the full arc, from early machine learning and automated pipelines to today's agent frameworks inside large enterprises. She is an AI and data strategist, a former data scientist and software engineer, and has just ...

Sep 13, 202526 minEp. 3419

3418: Scaling IoT Security with Real Time Visibility at Wireless Logic

Here's the thing. Connecting thousands of devices is the easy part. Keeping them resilient and secure as you grow is where the real work lives. In this episode, I sit down with Iain Davidson, Senior Product Manager at Wireless Logic, to unpack what happens when connectivity, security, and operations meet in the real world. Wireless Logic connects a new IoT device every 18 seconds, with more than 18 million active subscriptions across 165 countries and partnerships with over 750 mobile networks. ...

Sep 12, 202536 minEp. 3418

3417: Inflection AI and the Rise of Contextual Intelligence

Here's the thing. Most enterprise AI pitches talk about scale and speed. Fewer talk about trust, tone, and culture. In this conversation with Inflection AI's Amit Manjhi and Shruti Prakash, I explore a different path for enterprise AI, one that combines emotional intelligence with analytical horsepower, enabling teams to ask more informed questions of their data and receive answers that are grounded in context. Amit's story sets the pace. He is a three-time founder, a YC alum, and a CS PhD who h...

Sep 11, 202532 minEp. 3417

3416: DEUNA: From One-Click Checkout to Intelligent Payments Infrastructure

Here's the thing. Payments only look simple from the outside. In this Tech Talks Daily episode, I sit down with Roberto "Reks" Kafati, CEO and co-founder of DEUNA, to unpack how a scrappy one-click checkout idea grew into an intelligent payments infrastructure that now touches a large slice of Mexico's online economy. Reks explains why Latin America's high decline rates aren't just an inconvenience but a growth killer, and how DEUNA's early focus on orchestration and checkout opened the door to ...

Sep 10, 202535 minEp. 3416

3415: Secure GenAI for SAP: Syntax Systems CodeGenie on BTP

I sat down with Leo de Araujo, Head of Global Business Innovation at Syntax Systems, to unpack a problem every SAP team knows too well. Years of enhancements and quick fixes leave you with custom code that nobody wants to document, a maze of SharePoint folders, and hard questions whenever S/4HANA comes up. What does this program do. What breaks if we change that field. Do we have three versions of the same thing. Leo's answer is Syntax AI CodeGenie, an agentic AI solution with a built-in chatbot...

Sep 09, 202526 minEp. 3415

3414: Self-Healing Machines and Robotics with Grace Technologies

Drew Allen, CEO of Grace Technologies, shares real stories from the floor, the ideas shaping safer plants, and why culture matters more than slogans. Drew's background stretches from a family line linked to Samuel Morse to teenage years in China to global business development at 3M. That range shows up in how he leads. He listens, he moves fast, and he expects teams to work on things that matter. In his world that means saving electricians from shocks and arc flash while helping manufacturers mo...

Sep 08, 202527 minEp. 3414

3413: Why Medium-Range Forecasts Could Save Millions: Lessons from Planette AI

I spoke with Kalai Ramea at a timely moment. We recorded this conversation during a heatwave in the UK, which made her work at Planette AI feel very real. Kalai calls herself an all-purpose scientist, with a path that runs through California climate policy, Xerox PARC, and now a startup focused on the forecast window that most people ignore. Not tomorrow's weather. Not far-off climate scenarios. The space in between. Two weeks to two months out, where decisions get made and money is on the line....

Sep 07, 202525 minEp. 3413

3412: PuppyGraph at the IT Press Tour: Graph Power Without the Pain

During the IT Press Tour, I had the pleasure of speaking with Weimo Liu, CEO and co-founder of PuppyGraph, and hearing firsthand how his team is rethinking graph technology for the enterprise. In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, Weimo joins me to share the story behind PuppyGraph's "zero ETL" approach, which lets organizations query their existing data as a graph without ever moving or duplicating it. We discuss why graph databases, despite their promise, have struggled with mainstream adoption...

Sep 06, 202522 minEp. 3412

3411: Why The Browser Is The New Security Perimeter

When I invited Or Eshed, CEO and co-founder of LayerX Security, onto Tech Talks Daily, I wanted to challenge a blind spot most teams carry into work each day. We talk about phishing, ransomware, and endpoint controls, yet we skip the place where employees actually live online. The browser. That quiet tab bar has become the front door to identities, payments, SaaS, and now AI. Or calls it a different operating system in its own right, and once you hear his examples of how extensions can intercept...

Sep 06, 202527 minEp. 3411

3410: Smartly CEO Laura Desmond on how AI is Rewriting the Rules of AdTech

I invited Laura Desmond, CEO of Smartly, to make sense of what feels like the biggest shake-up in marketing since the mobile era. She has led through every cycle I can remember, from the early internet to the rise of social, and she sees AI changing the rules faster than any previous wave. Across our conversation we unpack how AI is rewriting creative work, buying, and measurement, while forcing brands to rebuild trust with clear rules on data, models, and creator rights. Here's the thing. Atten...

Sep 05, 202537 minEp. 3410

How Fugro is Using Tech to Chart the Ocean Floor

What does it take to map the oceans when most of the world's seabed remains unseen and unmapped? That's the question I explored with Mike Liddell from Fugro, a company using technology to reveal what lies beneath the waves. In our conversation, Mike explained why surveying the ocean is like "working in heavy fog on a roller coaster" and how traditional tools like light and radio signals are useless underwater. Instead, sonar, robotics, and increasingly AI are stepping in to make sense of this hi...

Sep 04, 202530 minEp. 3409

3408: Lightricks, Open Source Video, and the Race for Faster Creativity

Here's the thing. Generative AI for visuals has shifted from a party trick to everyday craftwork, and few people sit closer to that shift than Ofir Bibi, VP of Research at Lightricks. In this conversation, I wanted to understand how a company famous for Facetune, Photoleap, and Videoleap is building for a future where creators expect speed, control, and choice without a headache. What I found was a story about building core technology that serves real creative workflows, not the other way around...

Sep 03, 202529 minEp. 3408

How Altair's AI Fabric Helps Businesses Move Beyond Pilot Projects

Artificial intelligence is no longer confined to experiments in labs or one-off pilot projects. For many enterprises, it is becoming the backbone of how they operate, innovate, and compete. But as companies race to deploy AI, the biggest challenge is not whether the technology works, but whether the foundations exist to scale it safely and effectively. In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Christian Buckner, Senior Vice President of Data and AI Platform at Altair, a company known fo...

Sep 02, 202526 minEp. 3407

Arthur AI and the Future of Digital Co-Workers

What if meetings stopped draining your time and instead became engines for action? That's the question driving Christoph Fleischmann, CEO of Arthur AI, and the conversation in today's episode of Tech Talks Daily. Christoph has spent his career at the intersection of human potential and technology, and now he's leading a company that wants to change how enterprises actually get work done. Arthur AI isn't another tool to add to the stack. It's a digital co-worker—an intelligent presence that joins...

Sep 01, 202528 minEp. 3406

From Pinterest and Airbnb to Kumo AI: Reinventing Enterprise AI

Here's the thing. Most enterprise AI talk today starts with chatbots and ends with glossy demos. Meanwhile, the data that actually runs a business lives in rows, columns, and time stamps. That gap is where my conversation with Vanja Josifovski, CEO of Kumo AI really comes alive. Vanja has spent two and a half decades helping companies turn data into decisions, from research roles at Yahoo and Google to steering product and engineering at Pinterest through its IPO and later leading Airbnb Homes. ...

Aug 31, 202527 minEp. 3405
Hosted on Libsyn
For the best experience, listen in Metacast app for iOS or Android