Are your photos scattered across multiple platforms? Can you access them anymore? Are you locked into platforms you barely enjoy? On this week’s episode, Paul and Rich sit down to discuss the impossibility of getting all your files in one place. Photo by Martin We’re locked in: This week Paul Ford and Rich Ziade sit down to talk to about a major problem with giant platforms — getting locked into them. We talk about having our documents scattered across multiple platforms, the impossibility of po...
Mar 06, 2018•30 min•Ep 107•Transcript available on Metacast Is bitcoin still operating in a vaccuum? How do we trace it back to market value? What does startup technology and bitcoin have in common? Paul and Rich talk to Aaron Lammer about smoking weed, the similarities between startups and bitcoin, and the future of the blockchain as a post-national project. Photo by Anna Rose It’s healthier to see it as gambling: This week Paul Ford and Rich Ziade sit down with Aaron Lammer to talk about his new podcast Coin Talk . We discuss the stability of bitcoin, ...
Feb 27, 2018•28 min•Ep 106•Transcript available on Metacast Do you need a security camera for your front-door? Do you need programmable lighting? Are smart homes really innovative? Paul and Rich talk about the pros and cons of connected homes, the security of our information, and the impossibility of competing with giant platforms like Google and Amazon. Smart Homes, Foolish People: This week Paul Ford and Rich Ziade sit down to talk about connected homes. We talk discuss the pros and cons of distributed networks, the fear of sharing data with giant plat...
Feb 20, 2018•25 min•Ep 105•Transcript available on Metacast Are we living in a post-file world? Has our cultural understanding of “notes” changed? Paul and Rich talk to Chris O’Neill about innovation, acquiring talent,and the importance of focusing your team. The Ups and Downs of Focusing: This week Paul Ford and Rich Ziade sit down to talk to Chris O’Neill, CEO of Evernote to discuss the company’s shift in focus. We talk about acquiring talent as an established company, digital hoarding and how to compete with a pen and paper. Paul also compares NYC to ...
Feb 13, 2018•26 min•Ep 103•Transcript available on Metacast What does Chief Compliance Officer really mean? What do you actually do? Paul and Rich sit down to talk about job titles, ruining our LinkedIn profiles, and the value of clarity. What does Grandpa do?: This week Paul Ford and Rich Ziade sit down to talk about terribly unclear LinkedIn profiles. We chat about the evolution of titles like Evangelist or Entrepreneur In Residence, and how to capture someone’s attention in three seconds. Rich complains about contracts and Paul makes a compelling defe...
Feb 06, 2018•26 min•Ep 102•Transcript available on Metacast How can a side-project become a multimillion dollar venture? How has San Quentin become a technology incubator? How can we work to curb America’s prison problem? Paul and Rich talk to Chris Redlitz about Venture Capital and his newest nonprofit, The Last Mile. Invest in the Pivot: This week Paul Ford and Rich Ziade sit down with VC, Chris Redlitz to talk about his newest venture, The Last Mile (TLM) . What started as a mission to instill hope in prisoners has become a technology incubator and co...
Jan 30, 2018•27 min•Ep 102•Transcript available on Metacast Are we experiencing bitcoin’s tulip-mania moment? Do we need to care about the iPhone X? Is Russia our biggest threat? Paul and Rich talk about the top three letdowns of last year, and make predeictions for what’s coming down the pike. A Bad Technology Year: This week Paul Ford and Rich Ziade sit down to talk scrutinize 2017. We talk about being letdown by iPhone X, relate the bitcoin economy to tulipmania, and question how we will deal with cyberwarfare in the future. We also make goals for the...
Jan 23, 2018•22 min•Ep 101•Transcript available on Metacast For decades, the Library of Congress seemed to err on the side of keeping information on lockdown, but Kate and Abbey have changed that. We talk about digitizing archives, creating cultural memory, and rethinking what a library really is.
Jan 16, 2018•34 min•Ep 100•Transcript available on Metacast What does product management really mean? How can you effectively couple design and engineering to bring a product to life? Paul and Rich talk about the difficulty in defining the discipline of product management, the three red-flags you should avoid on a resume, and how to demonstrate value under an ambiguous title. You report to the product: This week Paul Ford and Rich Ziade sit down to talk about hiring product managers who do more than the hand-off. We delve into the intersection of design ...
Jan 09, 2018•25 min•Ep 99•Transcript available on Metacast How can you pitch your product without boring an investor? How have audio platforms won the competition for user attention? Paul and Rich talk to Matt Hartman about product development, chatbots and the importance of creating products that establish a sense of connection. Competiting with the Infinite Scroll: This week Paul Ford and Rich Ziade sit down with Matt Hartman , Partner and Director of Seed Funding at betaworks to talk about creating products that stick. We delve into the future of cha...
Jan 02, 2018•32 min•Ep 98•Transcript available on Metacast Check your shoes. Are you standing in shit already?: This week Paul Ford and Rich Ziade make the case that net neutrality was never enough. Of course, congress’ vote to to repeal net neutrality protections will have huge impacts on innovation, product development and the way we think about equality. We delve into the ways that we can we compete with the giants, the disruptive tech that’s created in protest, and we compete for the title of Most Cynical (Spoiler: Rich wins)....
Dec 26, 2017•29 min•Ep 97•Transcript available on Metacast Have we moved too far away from the mainframe? Do engineers need more empathy? Does technology have a woman problem? Paul and Gina talk to Ellen Ullman to find out how the past 20 years of tech are shaping the next 20.
Dec 19, 2017•28 min•Ep 96•Transcript available on Metacast Words matter, writing matters and that mission is alive and well at Medium. Paul and Rich talk to Head of Product, Michael Sippey to find out more about making money in publishing, the importance of good content and his three-step approach to product management.
Dec 12, 2017•32 min•Ep 95•Transcript available on Metacast Are we building the dystopian future we’re afraid of?: This week Paul Ford and Rich Ziade talk about Amazon, Facebook and other big-tech companies that have changed our basic human interactions. We delve into the commoditization of our feelings, valuing efficiency over communication, and the despair that comes from seeing a death announcement on social media (especially when it’s bumped up against a recipe for a chocolate soufflé).
Dec 05, 2017•23 min•Ep 94•Transcript available on Metacast For decades, startups have tried to unseat the mighty spreadsheet, with no success. Does Airtable, a database for the web, have what it takes? And what did it take to make Airtable? Paul Ford and Rich Ziade talk to Airtable co-found Andrew Ofstad to find out.
Nov 28, 2017•30 min•Ep 92•Transcript available on Metacast Is Facebook a monopoly? This week Paul and Rich tackle the 2-billion-user elephant in the room and go back and forth on two big questions: whether Facebook violates antitrust laws and should be broken up, and how the platform (or its regulators) can solve its rampant fake news problem. Topics covered include what “breaking up” Facebook would even look like, how the platform might verify news sources, separating news from satire, and the general public’s ambivalence about privacy and security....
Nov 21, 2017•40 min•Ep 91•Transcript available on Metacast From the front lines of the podcast boom: this week Paul and Rich talk to Matt Lieber, co-founder of Gimlet Media, one of the most successful podcast studios in the industry. Topics covered include the company’s origin (and the podcast that chronicled its founding), how Gimlet recruits and trains its editors, the trajectory of the medium, why you shouldn’t play favorites amongst your employees, and how Matt has been re-cast as a sleazy door-to-door salesman in an upcoming ABC comedy produced, di...
Nov 14, 2017•41 min•Ep 90•Transcript available on Metacast Is there a way to fix LinkedIn? This week Paul and Rich return one of their favorite hate-topics: LinkedIn is, in Paul’s words, “a remarkable affront to everything that we care about and believe in.” They discuss “human spam,” various UX gripes with the platform, Paul’s methods for “killing the virus” to eliminate certain types of social connectors, resumes, and various suggestions for improving the product—including a $100 offer to anyone who can build a Chrome extension to implement their idea...
Nov 07, 2017•25 min•Ep 89•Transcript available on Metacast From TV writing to scriptwriting software: this week Paul and Rich talk to Rob Dubbin, former writer and producer for The Colbert Report and The Late Show and current CEO of Scripto. They discuss Scripto’s creation and the special workflow challenges coordinating a late-night show, animal welfare, transitioning from writing to tech, Bluetooth, Google Wave, and more.
Oct 31, 2017•45 min•Ep 88•Transcript available on Metacast How do you pull the plug on a product people love? This week Paul and Rich talk about good and bad ways to shut a digital product, from giving people a path to export their data (good) to writing a blog post entitled “Our Incredible Journey” (bad) (very, very bad). Topics discussed include AOL Instant Messenger (RIP), communities around software, Rich’s experiences shutting Readability, and Paul’s experience pinpointing the fundamental ethos of the web: “Why wasn’t I consulted?”
Oct 24, 2017•26 min•Ep 87•Transcript available on Metacast Building a community for developers: this week Paul and Gina talk to Jenn Schiffer, community engineer at Fog Creek’s Glitch, a platform for developers to write, share, and remix code that is, in Jenn’s words, helping to “lower the barriers for developers to build great things.” Topics discussed include development frameworks, how coding is taught, cultures of harassment online and in the tech world, and the (sort of mindblowing!) way a bloomin’ onion is made.
Oct 17, 2017•50 min•Ep 86•Transcript available on Metacast New technologies vs buzzwords: this week Paul and Rich discuss the challenge of sifting through trends in the technology world—and how they help clients separate what they need from what they think they need. Topics discussed include SOAP, machine learning, Paul’s love of the words “matrix” and “vector,” React, blockchain, the iPhone X “notch,” and, most importantly, paddleboarding.
Oct 10, 2017•35 min•Ep 85•Transcript available on Metacast Building digital tools for active citizenship: this week Paul and Rich talk to Glenn Brown, the chief digital officer at the Obama Foundation. The conversation works through each major stop in his career, from Harvard Law (including the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society) to Creative Commons to Google and YouTube to Twitter to his current role. Topics covered include the mission of the Obama Foundation, copyright and fair use, what “product counsel” does at a place like Google, the powe...
Oct 03, 2017•41 min•Ep 84•Transcript available on Metacast “The bad times, as a manager, are easier than the good times”: this week Paul and Rich discuss a “good problem to have”—managing growth as demand for your work grows. They talk about their personal experiences at Postlight before offering up a series of tips for managing growth, including not taking on too much while still not compromising on the approach and philosophy that got you there.
Sep 26, 2017•35 min•Ep 83•Transcript available on Metacast New horizons in digital media: this week Paul and Rich talk to Anna Holmes, the founder of Jezebel and current SVP of Editorial at First Look Media, where she recently launched the visual storytelling site Topic.com. They discuss her early magazine career, the rise of online media, comment sections vs social media conversations, and what it's like to run a more reflective site in a world of reactive takes.
Sep 19, 2017•46 min•Ep 82•Transcript available on Metacast How does Postlight tackle security challenges? This week Paul and Rich begin the episode with takeaways from the Apple iPhone announcement (which they had not yet heard at the time of recording) before diving into a wide-ranging discussion on digital security, from personal worries to the Equifax breach to the steps they take as a company to ensure clients’ data safety. They then tell the story of the first $20 Postlight ever made—a tale about infidelity, large datasets, AshleyMadison.com, and a...
Sep 12, 2017•35 min•Ep 81•Transcript available on Metacast The challenges of product management at scale: this week Paul and Rich talk to Oren Mor, a head of product at Goldman Sachs and a former product manager at Google. They discuss his entry into the industry, making the technology behind Microsoft’s Kinect, his pivot to finance, and his return to tech at Google, where he spent years shipping ad products. They then go deep into the online advertising world, including ethical concerns around ad placements and the new taxonomies that’s creating on the...
Sep 05, 2017•43 min•Ep 80•Transcript available on Metacast What makes a good meeting? This week Paul and Rich set out to break down everyone’s least-favorite part of the workday—the meeting—but they wind up breaking down complicated office management dynamics along the way. They do offer concrete tips and strategies, from how to keep your head down early in your career to keeping the agenda focused and specific to the beauty of ending a meeting early.
Aug 29, 2017•35 min•Ep 79•Transcript available on Metacast How design came to drive business: this week Paul and Rich talk about the evolution of the role of design in the tech industry, from Microsoft’s early dominance—privileging function over form—to Apple’s ascendency in the past decade, where user-centered design, particularly on mobile, has led to their success. Topics discussed include the McKinsey consultants, the early history of Apple, the jumble of titles and roles in the digital design world, and Rich’s perpetual hatred of Apple’s chief desi...
Aug 22, 2017•39 min•Ep 78•Transcript available on Metacast Understanding the fundamentals of public speaking: this week Paul and Rich talk to Bill Smartt, a coach who believes that everyone can improve their speaking skills. They break down his three big tips—speak up, slow down, and make eye contact—and discuss (and practice!) breathing exercises that can help when stagefright kicks in. They also discuss his origin story, which involves some poorly-placed dry ice at a Nashville Halloween party.
Aug 15, 2017•39 min•Ep 77•Transcript available on Metacast 
