Wharton Tech Toks - podcast cover

Wharton Tech Toks

Wharton Tech Clubwhartontechtoks.medium.com
Wharton Tech Toks (WTT) creates a space for bold, forward-looking tech discussions that enlighten and inspire. We feature executives, founders, investors, and professors from across the tech industry. We discuss interesting trends, analysis, strategies, and personal stories that are compelling to everyone from MBA students to senior executives. We want to dare to be bold, even if we’re wrong, to push our collective thinking.
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Episodes

Social Shopping with Melissa Nguyen

Join Spandana Bhattacharya and Javier Torres as they talk to Melissa Nguyen , the Regional Director for Vendor Performance Management for Google Customer Solutions Americas. Melissa has also held various positions in startups and private equity across East and Southeast Asia. By now I am sure you have, at some point, been surprised by how well targeted ads know you. Maybe you searched for a product once (or maybe just thought about it) and now that product is everywhere. Join us while we talk to...

Jan 23, 202324 min

Gaana: Localization & Music Streaming in India

Join Spandana Bhattacharya and Emma Robinson as they talk to Sandeep Lodha, an entrepreneur and the current CEO of Gaana, India's largest commercial music streaming service. Sandeep shares more about his entrepreneurial journey starting and scaling Weddingz.in, and learnings he brought over to Gaana. Considering expanding your musical horizons? Tune in to learn about the unique aspects of the Indian market, and how Gaana successfully competes with global streaming giants, while balancing growth ...

Jan 20, 202325 min

Scaling Operations, the Gig Economy & Supply Chains: Professor Gad Allon, The Wharton School

Join Spandana Bhattacharya and Leon Zhang as they talk to Professor Gad Allon, an expert on operations management and award-winning professor renowned for the highly popular course "Scaling Operations: Linking Strategy and Execution" at The Wharton School. Listen in to get tips on how to scale start-ups in challenging macro environments, when robots will become mainstream, what's causing airline disruptions, and how the nature of employment will change over the next generation.

Jan 11, 202333 min

Duolingo: The Best Way to Learn a Language

Join Spandana Bhattacharya and Javier Torres as they talk to Cem Kansu , Vice President of Product Management at Duolingo . Cem is a fellow Whartonite, graduating with an MBA in 2016 who worked at Google prior to school. We’re sure by now you’ve seen their funny, ubiquitous green owl mascot (if not, check out Duo on TikTok ), but Duolingo’s mission to develop the best education in the world and make it universally available is no joke. Boasting over 100 courses in 40 distinct languages, includin...

Nov 29, 202230 min

Substack: Building a Better Future for Writing

Join us as we talk to Chris Best , co-founder and CEO at Substack , a leading newsletter subscription platform. Five years ago, email newsletters sound downright archaic. Today, reading email newsletters is society’s coolest hobby. From Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald’s newest take on current events, to Yem’s newsletter that sends 2 hours of music everyday at 3am to kickstart your day, Substack is creating an alternate universe of trusted, high quality content shipped right to ...

Nov 09, 202235 min

YouTube: Empowering the Creator Economy

Join us as we talk to Trond Wuellner , Director of Product Management at YouTube , an investor in more than 25 early stage businesses as an active member of the Hustle Fund Angel Squad, and a board member of the Sustainable Ocean Alliance. In this podcast, we talk about the growing creator economy and Trond’s previous experience at Google and YouTube, from learning about managing people from Sheryl Sandberg to his advice for aspiring product managers. Growth in tooling and media platforms has cr...

Nov 02, 202242 min

Univer.se: The Future of Website Building

Join us as we talk to Joseph Cohen , Founder and CEO at Univer.se. Ever wanted a website to launch and grow your business or side-hustle? Or perhaps you wanted a place to showcase your creativity online? Even if you have no idea where to start and are a non-coder, Univer.se has got you covered. Univer.se is a mobile drag and drop website builder that makes creating a personal portfolio to an ecommerce shop as easy as editing a photo on Instagram and as fun as playing with Legos. Part of the no-c...

Oct 26, 202238 min

Everywhere for Everyone: TaskRabbit, Scaling Culture, and Investing in the Founders of the Future

Join us as we talk to Stacy Brown-Philpot, Founding member of SoftBank’s Opportunity Fund, Board Member of HP Inc., Nordstrom, Noom, StockX, Black Girls Code, the Urban Institute, and former CEO of TaskRabbit. We chat about launching new markets, scaling culture, leading authentically, and investing in founders of the future. How does the small size of apartments in Wembley, England and Ikea Pax wardrobes lead to improvements in TaskRabbit’s app? What does the NYC metro and grid lock traffic in ...

Jun 29, 202250 min

Headspace: The Rise of the Total Wellness Platform

Join us as we talk to Sean Brecker , CFO and Board Member at Headspace Health , one of the first meditation apps and a leader in whole body wellness space! Let’s face it, this pandemic has shot up our cortisol levels to the moon! And there seems to be a never-ending torrent of things to worry about from elections to whether we’ll be able to see our families. So, what do we do about this constant feeling of existential crises? Well, here’s where Headspace and whole body wellness come in! Not only...

Nov 30, 202142 min

Optimizing Food Delivery One Byte at a Time

Join us as we talk to Jessica Lachs, VP, Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash, everyone's favorite food delivery app. In this episode, we dive into how data and technology are transforming the food delivery and restaurant industry, the role of data in solving optimization problems that arise from three-sided marketplaces, the steps involved in scaling operations at a startup, data-driven decision making, data analytics, data science, how to switch careers or enter a new industry and more! Door...

Oct 04, 202146 min

AI: Buzzword or Breakthrough

Join us as we talk to Kartik Hosanagar, John C. Hower Professor of Technology and Digital Business and a Professor of Marketing at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Kartik’s research focuses on the digital economy, in particular the impact of analytics and algorithms on consumers and society, Internet media, Internet marketing and e-commerce. In this episode, we dive into the Artificial Intelligence (AI) landscape by discussing key players, new and exciting areas of developme...

Apr 21, 202138 min

The Future of Audio: Spotify Supercharging Creator Tools and Ad Tech

Join us as we talk to Jay Richman, VP, Head of Global Advertising Business & Platform at Spotify, a digital music service that needs no introduction. In this episode, we dive into the streaming industry, the podcast landscape and trends, advertising technology, streaming targeted ads, creator platforms, the algorithm revolution, recent acquisitions, entrepreneurship and more! Spotify revolutionized the music industry by providing users with easy access to millions of songs and personalized p...

Apr 06, 202138 min

Telehealth ≠ Digital Health: Reshaping The Patient Experience with Data And Human Centered Design

Join us as we talk to Sukanya Soderland, Chief Strategy Officer at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, one of the largest private health plans in Massachusetts serving 3 million members. In this episode, we dive into how big data is changing digital health, why patients will own their data, and the technology innovations that will bring about the Apple of EHRs. With the rise of COVID, we’re overcoming byzantine barriers like hyper locality. Your doctor doesn’t need to be down the street, th...

Mar 24, 202131 min

The Rise and Power of Cloud

Join us as we talk to Andrew Straus, VP of Sales Strategy and Planning at Snowflake, a cloud-based data warehousing company. Snowflake made history in September 2020 with the largest software IPO ever selling 28 million shares and raising nearly $3.4 billion. During this episode, we get an incredible understanding of the rise of cloud, the current state of the market, how cloud customers think about their cloud strategy and the future of data analytics powered by cloud. Dude where’s my cloud? Ba...

Feb 25, 202141 min

Save the Calendar, Save the World

Join us as we talk to Nash Ahmed, CEO and Founder of Undock about the Future of Work, the technologies that will change our daily lives and his 1 Billion user vision. Undock just raised $1.6M from big ol’ names like Bessemer Venture Partners and Lightship Capital. COVID struck. Zoom went Boom. WFH became “permanent”. Incumbents are snapping unicorns up like afternoon tea to stay competitive (yes, you Salesforce / Slack - Slackforce?). The workplace shifted by lightyears! We were all excited by t...

Dec 09, 202038 min

Space: Commercializing the Galaxy

Space is the new Silicon Valley and Musk, Bezos and Branson are all competing to be the real life version of Tony Stark (nerds and their superheroes…). In fact, they're all playing a new game of: My Rocket Ship is Bigger than Your Rocket Ship. But, why the hell are we investing in space? Do we just plan on abandoning Earth like last week's leftovers (i mean, how much turkey can you eat)? Where are we really in this quest to become space people? What are the potential tech and business applicatio...

Dec 01, 202041 min

Fixing Healthcare: Mount Sinai's Monumental Product Journey

Healthcare is in the Dark Ages. Seriously. Even the DMV has better NPS scores. And we’ve been talking about ‘radically’ changing the system for what, two decades now? Telemedicine was supposed to be the best thing since the stethoscope but adoption was slower than a turtle racing in F1 before COVID forced us to change. Join us as we talk to Mount Sinai Health System’s Chief Product Officer and Head of Consumer Digital Innovations, Dave Kerwar, where he covers the barriers to innovation, the NYC ...

Nov 24, 202021 min

Little Fish, Big Bowl: Fishbowl's Growing Enterprise

Social media dominates our daily lives from a morning scroll through Instagram (hello enews), mid-day break to get ‘inspired’ by LinkedIn ( click to be influenced ) and evening rabbit hole on YouTube (1 hour, 3 funny dog compilations later). But where can I get advice from senior leaders on the daily struggles as a junior resource? Yes Bob, projecting my screen to watch me perform a financial forecast live is the definition of micromanaging. Where can I talk candidly to fellow young professional...

Nov 17, 202040 min

Connected Everything: Prepping for a Digital Tomorrow

Everything is connected - my car, my speakers, my TV, my coffee machine, my toothbrush - what’s next? My toilet paper? Join us as we talk about human-centered design and connected devices, particularly Autonomous Vehicles , with Zafar Razzacki. Zafar is an expert on the design, development and launch of connected and innovative products. His experience spans over 15 years of product, marketing, and strategy roles at companies including Google, General Motors, Accenture, and multiple technology s...

Nov 04, 202049 min
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