All the statistics show that when it comes to VC cash, men get almost all of it. In fact, they snag way more than the percentage of startups they solely found. In conversation with two Irish VC investors and a startup COO, Adrian wonders if it’s partly down to male founders simply being less shy about making grandiose, bold statements about their firms. And what should investors actually do about it? Is positive discrimination desireable? Or should it be a slow evolution? Giving expert analysis ...
Dec 07, 2018•46 min
In the original dot com boom, all you needed was an idea and you were showered with millions in funding. But is the same now happening with cryptocurrency and blockchain? This week, Adrian meets David Wachsman, the founder of the world’s largest Blockchain focused PR agency. It has chosen Dublin as its headquarters to serve Europe. Adrian asks whether crypto is a bandwagon that people are jumping on. The two talk about possible use cases versus actual examples of blockchain in action now. David ...
Nov 30, 2018•47 min
This week, Adrian throws off the shackles in a free-ranging conversation with the Irish Independent’s environment editor, Paul Melia. The two discuss the current state of big tech companies, why electric cars are a tough sell at present and the credibility gap that cryptocurrency evangelists sometimes suffer. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Nov 23, 2018•35 min
What happens when the tech company you build becomes wildly successful? Do you change? At the Web Summit, Adrian sat down with the Des Treanor, co-founder of Intercom, the €1bn software firm. They talked about dealing with success, company culture, artificial intelligence and where Intercom goes from here. The Big Tech Show is brought to you this week by PwC. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Nov 09, 2018•37 min
Adrian returns to Dublin following Apple’s MacBook Air and iPad Pro launch. Joined by Sunday Independent business correspondent Michael Cogley and INM head of product Steve Dempsey, he goes through the most important features of what was announced and asks whether pro tablets can be a long term replacement for current laptops. Irish Independent business editor Donal O’Donovan joins the discussion to figure out whether the Web Summit, which kicks off in Lisbon on Tuesday, matters to Irish busines...
Nov 02, 2018•54 min
Mark Little is one of Ireland’s most recognisable media technology figures. From being an anchorman on RTE television to founding Storyful to becoming boss of Twitter in Ireland, he has seen the business from all angles. Now he’s back with a new venture that aims to reinvent app-based news. Together with former journalist and Facebook executive Aine Kerr and ex-Storyful collaborator Paul Watson, Little has launched ‘Kinzen’. Adrian sits down to talk to Little, Kerr and Watson about the problem t...
Oct 26, 2018•24 min
When do comedy and technology mix? Why is social media so much to the fore in critical analysis of current events? This week, Adrian chats to a contemporary master, David Schneider, about the role of comedy and social media in our daily lives. Schneider is one of the writers and actors on seminal British comedy series such as 'The Day Today' and 'I’m Alan Partridge’. Adrian also catches up with Lory Kehoe, the Irish boss of the blockchain specialist company, Consensys. They discuss some of the a...
Oct 19, 2018•50 min
In a week that saw the resignation of the Minister responsible for the National Broadband Plan, Adrian asks some blunt questions about whether the whole rural rollout plan is going to be delayed and, if so, for what reasons. Adrian is joined in analysing the whole sorry saga by the Irish Independent’s political correspondent, Laura Larkin and the Sunday Independent’s business correspondent, Michael Cogley. Adrian also catches up with Oisin Hanrahan, the Dublin tech entrepreneur who raised almost...
Oct 12, 2018•1 hr 4 min
How do you ask for money for your startup? That’s the question that Adrian put to Peter O’Malley, the co-founder of a new startup that has raised €1m from a variety of ‘business angels’ that include Paddy Cosgrave, CPL boss Anne Heraty and former Paddy Power chief Breon Corcoran. Is there a difference between approaching ‘friends and family’ and business contacts? What sort of plan do you need to have in place? Peter talks about his own experience and how he and co-founder Galen Lowney realised ...
Oct 05, 2018•31 min
How do you ask for money for your startup? That’s the question that Adrian put to Peter O’Malley, the co-founder of a new startup that has raised €1m from a variety of ‘business angels’ that include Paddy Cosgrave, CPL boss Anne Heraty and former Paddy Power chief Breon Corcoran. Is there a difference between approaching ‘friends and family’ and business contacts? What sort of plan do you need to have in place? Peter talks about his own experience and how he and co-founder Galen Lowney realised ...
Oct 05, 2018•31 min
This week, Adrian talks tech and politics with Tommy Collison, an Irish transplant to Seattle. Tommy brings us up to date on where tech and politics intersect in Silicon Valley. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sep 28, 2018•39 min
With almost two weeks of rigorous testing under his belt, Adrian Weckler assesses the iPhone Xs and Xs Max . Is the screen on the Xs Max too big? Has battery life improved? Is the Xs now the best cameraphone, or is Huawei’s P20 Pro still in top spot? And can that big, big price be justified, or is it worth waiting for next month’s iPhone Xr? Adrian also meets Jamie White, the young Dublin entrepreneur who set up Start Summit and Leading Social, a marketing agency specialising in social media str...
Sep 21, 2018•51 min
This week, Adrian reports from Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California where he was on hand to test out the newly-launched iPhone Xs Max, Xs and Xr phones. The big talking points are around that new 6.5-inch screen, a whopper by Apple’s standards. But the other surprise feature came in the shape of the new Apple Watch Series 4’s ECG sensor and ‘fall detection’ feature. Separately, Adrian talks to the futurist Lucie Greene about how the big tech companies are likely to affect our lives in com...
Sep 14, 2018•1 hr
This week, Adrian Weckler talks to the global IT security celebrity and virus hunter Mikko Hypponen. Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure, says that we should be taking threats from North Korea a lot more seriously than we do. He also explains why, in the hierarchy of worst malware outbreaks in recent years, Petya was probably worse than Wannacry. And he hears how Adrian is guilty of perpetuating one of the stupidest security practices in Ireland today. (Hypponen is one of the keynote sp...
Sep 07, 2018•31 min
This week, Adrian talks to Daniel Gross, who grew up in Israel and went to Silicon Valley as a teenager to seek fame and fortune through the famous accelerator, Y Combinator. He set up a company called Cue and sold it to Apple for a reported $35m in 2013 before going to work for the tech giant. Last year, he left Apple to become a partner in Y Combinator and now he’s a founder of Pioneer, which says that it is looking for ‘lost Einsteins’ or talented young people who aren’t getting a chance in l...
Aug 31, 2018•24 min
This week, Adrian sits down for an exclusive chat with Ryan Smith, the charismatic Utah founder of the €2bn software firm Qualtrics. As well as being one of the fastest growing tech companies in the world, Smith is on a mission to battle cancer. He started his company when he quit college to look after his father, who was diagnosed with cancer. While his dad survived, Qualtrics’ Irish boss Dermot Costello passed away earlier this year from cancer. (Costello, a huge presence in the Irish tech ind...
Aug 24, 2018•37 min
This week, Adrian and the panel discuss the thorny question of whether social media services should be allowed — or obliged — to kick people off for airing views and opinions that are considered extreme or dangerous. It’s an issue that Twitter is currently hamfistedly trying to deal with in the case of Alex Jones, the American conspiracy theorist whose InfoWars channel has been accused of stirring up violent sentiment through its broadcasts and editorials. (Jones has argued that the September 11...
Aug 17, 2018•51 min
They came to Dublin to seek success and fortune. This week, Adrian Weckler sits down with two ambitious, successful young entrepreneurs who have one thing in common: they came to Dublin for the promise of its tech industry. What did they find? Is Dublin the real tech capital they had heard about? Can you make it big here? What about those who say that Dublin is just a glorified big outsourcing centre for multinationals? American Austin Spivey (head of operations for Wia Technologies) and Sergei ...
Aug 10, 2018•47 min
This week Adrian Weckler looks at the list of sins Facebook is again having to answer for. Joined by political correspondent Laura Larkin and business editor Donal O’Donovan, the panel assesses Facebook’s excuses to an Irish government committee and looks at what might happen in the short term. Will there be a Digital Safety Commissioner? Will any political regulation actually materialise? And do people really care about all the hoopla around Facebook in the first place? The matter of a fresh te...
Aug 03, 2018•44 min
There is a downside to tech cities. On the US west coast, where the biggest tech companies have their headquarters, there is also terrible homelessness. In this podcast episode, Adrian goes to Seattle, arguably America’s fastest-growing tech metropolis. He poses the question; why is homelessness is so bad in a city that’s booming so much? While Amazon, Microsoft, Boeing and other huge firms soar, so does the number of people in tent cities alongside roads in the city. It’s a dystopian scenario. ...
Jul 20, 2018•39 min
Having tested dozens of handsets this year, Adrian Weckler gives his verdict on what the best cameraphone on the market is at present. It comes down to a battle between three models: Huawei’s P20 Pro, Apple’s iPhone X and Samsung’s Galaxy S9 Plus. Adrian picks the winner, the runner up and the also-ran, as well as a budget alternative. Adrian also looks at some of the best summer technology gadgets on the market right now, including the best new drone, portable power bank and travel camera. Adri...
Jul 13, 2018•47 min
This week, Adrian gets a behind-the-scenes tour of Microsoft’s campus headquarters in Redmond, Seattle. This includes a preview of the latest in he company’s ‘mixed reality’ headset, Hololens. It also includes a discussion on the ethics and future of artificial intelligence, which Microsoft is laying great emphasis on. The company also lays out some futuristic plans, including a data centre under the sea. And it gives a complete rundown of what the office of the future might look like, including...
Jul 06, 2018•56 min
This week, Adrian Weckler talks to two women directing crucial operations in two of the world’s biggest tech companies. The Big Tech Show travelled to Seattle to meet Emma Williams, the Dubliner who’s now Microsoft’s corporate vice president for Office Products Group. As she tells Adrian, it was originally the study of Old Norse and Anglo Saxon English in Trinity College that gave Williams a propensity to learn open source code. 20 years on, Williams is directing some of Microsoft’s most importa...
Jun 29, 2018•40 min
How has it come to a situation where a big tech company announcing 1,000 new jobs is freaking people out? This week’s Amazon jobs announcement has led to a backlash from people who feel it will put extra pressure on rents and infrastructure in the capital. “Where will they live?” “Oh great, even higher rents...” “Why are these jobs all in Dublin?” “How many will come from abroad?” 20, 10 or even five years ago, big job announcements were seen as a huge boost to the country. Today, they’re seen a...
Jun 22, 2018•51 min
“Are robots actually becoming intelligent?” “Is my job under threat from intelligent machines?” “How close are Google, Amazon and Apple to giving me a real assistant?” “Is Elon Musk right that machines are going to wake up and start killing us?” These are the practical questions that dominate today’s discussions around artificial intelligence. Adrian Weckler sits down with AI expert and founder of SoapBox Labs, Patricia Scanlon, to go through dozens of ordinary questions about what will now happ...
Jun 08, 2018•50 min
This week, Adrian Weckler and Dr Mick O’Kerrigan from RecommenderX discuss 20 of the dumbest, faddiest tech ideas in recent years. From connected forks and ‘smart umbrellas’ to 3D televisions and digital photo frames, the two mercilessly condemn the worst of our tech gadgets to their hall of shame. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jun 01, 2018•58 min
“I run a sports club – does this mean I have to ask them for permission to email now?” “Is it the end of cold-calling?” “What about if I want to email everyone about a charity I’m supporting?” These are the practical questions that many are asking as Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into force. Adrian Weckler sits down with Daragh O’Brien (founder of data privacy expert firm Castlebridge) to go through dozens of layman questions about what will now happen in everyday busi...
May 25, 2018•1 hr 10 min
Adrian is joined by culture journalist Roisin Kiberd and INM’s head of product (and Sunday Independent columnist) Steve Dempsey to pore through some of the biggest tech tissues of the week. - Do people have a right to know that they’re talking to a robot (such as Google’s Duplex)? Is it amazing or creepy? - Has Ireland made a mistake in choosing 16 as the digital age of consent rather than 13, like the UK? While there are pros and cons to the higher age, there’s a nagging feeling that it may be ...
May 18, 2018•56 min
What sort of power do ‘influencers’ really yield? Adrian sits down with one of the most powerful social media figures in Ireland, who is a wanted man by commercial brands. James Kavanagh explains what he does, why it works and how he is now earning a multiple of what he did in previous jobs. Honesty and originality, he says, are key attributes, as well a particularly strong work ethic. He discusses how coming from a family of strongly motivated individuals, including his famous brother (Conor Mc...
May 11, 2018•38 min
What’s the story with self-driving cars coming to Ireland? How will it all affect insurance? Will middle-aged men be able to bear giving up ‘control’ of their ‘rides’? And which cars already have significant self-driving capabilities? Adrian sits down with two people who know all about it, Geraldine Herbert (Sunday Independent and editor of wheelsforwomen.ie) and Philip McNamara, co-founder of Mobility X, which is looking at the near future for autonomous vehicles. The panel also look at the pro...
May 04, 2018•54 min
