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Danny In The Valley Profile

Danny In The Valley

English, Finance, 8 seasons, 369 episodes, 4 days, 12 hours, 23 minutes
About
After many years in London, Danny Fortson returns to Silicon Valley to meet the new wave of tech entrepreneurs hoping to disrupt our lives.
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Al Gore, Tech and Climate

Katie and Danny are joined by Al Gore for big thoughts on how to take on the big challenges. Outside of AI, there is one area that is still getting a good amount of venture capital dollars and that's tackling climate change. But what's the right way to invest and will it work? Who decides the way forward, the investors, the tech giants or the politicians? And who better to answer these questions than Al Gore, former US Vice-President and now guru to climate campaigners worldwide. He's our guest this week. Follow us now for more big interviews coming up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
10/18/202451 minutes, 45 seconds
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Vlad Tenev (Plus, Nobel Prizes for A.I.)

This week - money, invention and regulation as we delve deep into the mind of Vlad Tenev, the co-founder and CEO of Robinhood, a hugely influential App designed in their words to “democratise finance”. And did Danny cleverly predict in our first episode, that Sir Demis Hassabis would indeed win a Nobel Prize? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
10/11/202449 minutes, 44 seconds
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The First Episode: Google DeepMind's Sir Demis Hassabis

Danny joins Katie in London for the Times Tech Summit, where the co-founder and boss of Google DeepMind Sir Demis Hassabis sets out his startling view that AI has the potential "to cure all diseases" and could 'have general human cognitive abilities within ten years." But fundamentally - do we really understand what AI is? Professor Neil Lawrence, the inaugural DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning at Cambridge University, Faculty AI CEO, Marc Warner, and Naila Murray, Director of AI Research at Meta share their views. And Danny and Katie ponder whether AI mania could be more about money than the mind? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
10/4/202434 minutes, 52 seconds
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Coming soon: The Times Tech Podcast with Danny and Katie

Danny Fortson in California - 'Danny in the Valley' - joins Katie Prescott in London to talk to the people changing tech across the world. As The Sunday Times’ West Coast Correspondent, Danny Fortson has witnessed first hand the technological whirlwind coming from Silicon Valley. Katie as Technology Business Editor at The Times has reported on how digital technology is transforming businesses and society around the world. Now ‘Danny in the Valley’ meets ‘Katie in the City’ - with a podcast presented from San Francisco and London. Each week sees a fresh interview with pioneers in tech from the brightest start-ups to the tech giants as they chronicle the AI revolution. Sounds good, but what will it sound like? Here's a taste.'What Occurs' by Islands is used by permission. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
10/1/202421 minutes, 38 seconds
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Danny in the Valley meets Katie in the City

'For nearly seven years Danny Fortson has made the Valley his own, interviewing the newcomers and the established; the inventors and the entrepreneurs; the brightest minds and most daring doers in Silicon Valley. Now the show gets an extra dimension as he is joined by London Technology Business Editor, Katie Prescott for the new Times Tech Podcast as they look at who is shaping tech not just in Silicon Valley, but around the world. It will be with you very soon, but first a special edition of Danny in the Valley, where Danny talks Katie through the people and the themes from the journey so far.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
9/27/202440 minutes, 17 seconds
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Longevity enthusiast Bryan Johnson

A throwback conversation with Bryan Johnson, a billionaire techie turned longevity enthusiast who goes to extreme measures to "reverse" his age. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1/26/20241 hour, 4 minutes, 54 seconds
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Walter Isaacson: “The light and darks strands of Elon Musk”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Walter Isaacson, the biographer of Elon Musk, to talk about his new book (3:10), Musks’ “heartlessness” (6:15), his maniacal sense of mission (10:50), his approach to pro-creation and children (18:00), his fear of loneliness (21:55), and why he can’t smell the flowers (25:00), the reaction to the book (28:35), why Isaacson doesn’t make judgments (30:10), “demon mode’ (34:30), the Twitter deal (38:45), and his political tack right (40:00). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
9/17/202345 minutes, 21 seconds
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Interlude: Back next week

Danny in the Valley will back next week. Jury duty forced me to cancel all meetings and pods this week! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
3/31/20231 minute, 29 seconds
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SUMMER INTERLUDE!

I'm taking a couple weeks off. Will be back with you first thing in September. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
8/19/202259 seconds
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Benedict Evans

This week Danny speaks with Benedict Evans, a technologist. In this episode they cover a range of things including web 3.0, cryptocurrency regulating tech and the future of tech as a whole.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
12/17/202153 minutes, 23 seconds
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Bonus Episode; Secrets of the Side Hustle- Tech for good with OLIO co-founder Tessa Clarke

Danny will be back later this week with more tales from the valley. But first, here's a special extra episode from the team behind "Secrets of the Side Hustle"Food waste is one of the biggest contributors to the climate crisis. Could sharing be the solution? Tessa Clarke, co-founder of the OLIO app thinks so.She sat down with host, Laura Jackson, to talk about how tech companies can change the world for the better, the struggles many female founders find when seeking investment and even more.Subscribe now to hear more from "Secrets of the Side Hustle"GuestTessa Clarke, co-founder of food sharing app, OLIOHost:Laura Jackson Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
6/28/202136 minutes, 46 seconds
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Bonus Episode; Stories of our times - Tik Tok and the data war

A special extra episode for you from the daily podcast from The Times;President Trump has ordered firms to stop doing business with social media giant TikTok over security concerns. Microsoft was the front-runner to buy the company, but now Twitter has emerged as a possible suitor. What has made the app so popular and so controversial? If you like this episode please rate and subscribe. Simply search for Stories of our times on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Acast or wherever you listen to your podcasts.Guests: Danny Fortson Sunday Times west coast correspondent.Host: Manveen Rana. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
8/11/202029 minutes, 26 seconds
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Special Episode: Stories of our times - could tech giants get us out of lockdown?

Today an edition of our new daily podcast - Stories of our times. Our new free daily news podcast takes you to the heart of the stories that matter, with exclusive access and reporting. Published for the start of your day, it is hosted by Manveen Rana and David Aaronovitch.Technology might be the answer to our problems - but could we be giving up our privacy in return for our liberty? Guest: Danny Fortson, The Sunday Times West Coast correspondent Host: David AaronovitchIf you want to hear more please search for Stories of our times and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
4/23/202027 minutes, 2 seconds
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Esther Wojcicki: “Kids do what you do, not what you say”

The Sunday Times tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Esther Wojcicki, educator and mother of Susan Wojcicki, CEO of Youtube, and Anne Wojcicki, founder of 23AndMe, to talk about the crisis in parenting (2:35), how her upbringing affected her approach (4:45), using TRICK (7:10), journalism as a tool to teach kids (9:55), the value of money (13:10) the coddling of children (16:50), the importance of trust (19:15), why memorisation is dumb (20:40), how to deal with the smartphone (22:05), how she feels about Youtube (27:20), student suicides in Palo Alto (30:50), why you shouldn’t get divorced (33:40), making herself obsolete (35:25), having Steve Jobs hang out at her class (37:40), how to teach purpose (41:00), how Susan started at Google (42:25), giving kids more agency (44:15), and the raising stakes (46:20). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
4/27/201950 minutes, 36 seconds
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Stripe's Patrick Collison: "I'm petrified of getting too confident"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Patrick Collison, founder of $9bn payments startup Stripe to talk about building the financial plumbing of the Internet (2:45), why the web is just getting started (5:05), treating the big and small the same (8:45), the problem with ads (12:00), the origin of the name ‘Stripe’ (13:25), growing up in a village (14:45), trying to not be too “Silicon Valley” (18:35), going from 40 to 1000 people in four years (21:30), hiring adults (23:45), avoiding complacency (25:45), arriving in America (27:20), first mover disadvantage (30:15), America’s stagnant banking market (20:10), dissonance between Silicon Valley’s image and reality (32:00), the future of money (35:10), his worst day of work (37:55), and learning to fly (39:10). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
3/2/201842 minutes, 27 seconds
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Tim O'Reilly: "It's our brains that are being hacked"

The Sunday Times tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Tim O’Reilly, oracle of the tech industry, to talk about why 2017 may go down as a watershed year (3:00), how Facebook is like Microsoft (4:25), what’s wrong with tech’s “master algorithm” (7:15), exploding the myth of the rise of the machines (9:50), the era of surveillance (12:25), the danger of bad laws (15:20), creating the world’s first website and formalising the open-source movement (17:40), coining the term “Web 2.0” (19:35), what World War II can tell us about tech (21:50), the need to rebuild society as we know it (24:35), why we may need to get rid of advertising altogether (25:25), why he doesn’t buy the blockchain hype (28:00), why the marriage of AI and biotech is the next big revolution (31:00), the beginning of the end of the Internet duopoly (31:55), data as the point of control (36:00), and why the 21st will be China’s (37:00). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1/26/201839 minutes, 54 seconds
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Comma.ai's George Hotz: "Computers don't get drunk"

The Sunday Times' tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on George Hotz, founder of Comma.ai to talk about how he plans to "win" the race to develop self-driving cars (2:45), improving autonomy (5:30), hacking the cars already on the road (7:10), developing the Android operating system of autmoobiles (9:00), why laser-based systems are "dumb" (10:35), why he doesn't plan to raise money (11:45), how self-driving will become a subscription service (13:00), trying to explain the unexplainable (15:10), Comma's army of DIY self-driving enthusiasts (18:30), why government should stay out out of the way (21:30), and creating a system based on human driving patterns (23:20).  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
11/25/201726 minutes, 8 seconds
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Baroness Beeban Kidron: "Kids are more than clickbait"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Baroness Beeban Kidron talk about her crusade against Big Tech, “age appropriate” design (1:40), turning 50 pages of terms and conditions into a couple sentences (2:50), the industry’s “category error” (4:30), why kids are considered kids online at 13 (7:50), how the smartphone changed everything (9:50), making the digital world look more like the real world (11:50), why the tech ‘nation-states’ need to assume more responsibilities (14:45), the turning tide of public opinion (16:00), industry being its own worst enemy (18:45), the tech ‘cartel’ (23:05), the “lost generation” (27:15), behaviour manipulation (29:30), and why tech isn’t like jazz or the novel (32:45). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
11/18/201736 minutes, 53 seconds
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Tanium’s Orion Hindawi: “This is a snake-oil industry”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Orion Hindawi, cyber-security billionaire and founder of Tanium, to talk about how the world is waking up to the security problem (1:50), how criminals make more from hacking than from drugs (3:50), rogue states like North Korea using hacking as an income generator (5:15), hacks becoming unavoidable events like earthquakes and fires (7:20), the origins of the Tanium name (8:15), starting his first company at age 17 (9:25), leaving and beginning again (11:10), why most companies don’t know how many computers they own (13:00), the great anti-virus scam (14:55), secret breaches (17:00), on whether Tanium has a toxic culture and “Orion’s list” (19:20), Silicon Valley’s terrible culture (21:40), the niche security market for the super-rich (24:30), the industry’s “boy who cried wolf” problem (26:30), and the cryptocurrency fallacy (29:00). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
11/11/201732 minutes
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Martha Lane Fox: “A Geneva Convention for the web”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Martha Lane Fox, dotcom pioneer and Twitter board member, to talk about the tech industry’s hubris (2:00), joining Twitter (5:45), explaining the Internet in 1995 (8:50), launching lastminute.com (11:50), creating a unicorn twenty years ago (13:35), which quickly became a pariah (16:15), almost dying in a car accident (17:45), rebuilding a career (19:30), the need for a Geneva Convention of the web (21:35), tech’s sexism problem (24:05), the dangers of screen time (28:00), her worst day of work (29:55), creating a “fair trade” style brand for responsible websites (32:30), designing for the “furthest first” (35:15), London’s effort to rival Silicon Valley (37:05), and why the old Parliament building should be closed down (40:00). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
11/4/201741 minutes, 59 seconds
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NYU's Scott Galloway: "Being an innovator doesn't make you Jesus"

The Sunday Times' tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Scott Galloway of NYU's Stern School of Business and author of The Four, to talk about how the big Internet companies Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google are like Darth Vader (2:10), Amazon's astoundingly low tax bill (5:45), its Jedi mind tricks (7:30), moving to a 'zero-click' model (9:30), the need to revisit antitrust laws (12:30), why Europe is going to lead the charge against Big Tech (14:30), how Google stockpiles geniuses (16:00), why Facebook is the most vulnerable (18:00), why the best thing it can do is overreact (21:45), Apple's historic ability to make money (22:45), how tech has replaced religion (24:30), its extraordinary concentration of power and wealth (27:00), what happens when Google gets hacked (30:30), Facebook's existential crisis (31:45), how the giants kill upstarts (33:15), and the coming war on Big Tech (37:00).  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
10/28/201738 minutes, 38 seconds
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SPECIAL: inside the cryptocurrency craze

The Sunday Times' tech correspondent Danny Fortson talks to cryptocurrency entrepreneurs and investors about the boom in initial coin offerings, or ICO’s, (1:45), why the underlying technology may be “bigger than the Internet” (2:45), living in an age of distrust (5:30), soaring digital currency values (6:30), how a former rapper is trying to get in on the craze (7:15), why most currencies are like Disney Dollars (9:50), the lack of regulation (12:25), the company trying to become the Goldmans Sachs of crypto (15:00), the industry’s links to gaming (17:40), the importance of blockchain (21:15), monetising human knowledge (23:00), limits to cryptographic security (27:40), North Korea’s hacking (29:45), blockchain’s electricity problem (31:25) and the future of everything (32:30). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
10/21/201733 minutes, 35 seconds
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Scribd’s Trip Adler: “In the future, we won’t buy or own anything.”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Trip Adler, founder of Scribd, to talk about creating the “Netflix of reading” (2:00), teaming up with newspapers (4:30), the evolving attitude to subscriptions (5:50), why less than 1% of users are paid subscribers (7:45), pivoting and pivoting again (9:05), taking on Amazon (11:20), the parallels to the music business (12:15), the generation gap (14:35), being classmates with Mark Zuckerberg (15:35), starting at Y Combinator (16:55), experimenting with a ride-sharing service (18:35), going from zero to 100 million users (19:05), the end of ownership (21:00), raising the company’s first $12,000 and working out of the “Y-scraper” (23:30), luring in venture capitalists (25:15), paywalls (29:30), splitting the pie with publishers (32:00), Scribd’s trove of sheet music (33:10) and teaming up with The New York Times (33:45). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
10/14/201735 minutes, 56 seconds
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Lightspeed’s Jeremy Liew: “People aren’t sneaking out of class to sext”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Jeremy Liew of Lightspeed Venture Partners, the first investor in Snapchat, to talk about moving to America from Australia (2:10), working for Uber’s Dara Khosrowshahi (4:00), the AOL diaspora (5:00), becoming a venture capitalist (7:15), tracking down Snapchat in 2012 (8:00), how a picture with Barack Obama helped sealed the deal (10:00), young women as a lead indicator (12:25), the sexting issue (15:05), the Snap rocketship (17:00), why Snapchat’s founders have created an ironclad grip over the shares (18:45), being on Evan Spiegel’s Christmas card list (21:25), Facebook’s copycat programme (22:00), Snap as the anti highlight reel (24:00), avoiding becoming Twitter (26:25), finding the next Snapchat (27:15), the power of GIF’s (29:15), investing in frivolity (31:00), on whether smartphones are ruining a generation (31:55), the next big thing (33:00) and how voice technology is going to transform the Internet (35:30). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
10/7/201739 minutes, 35 seconds
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Twitter co-founder Ev Williams: “You’re selling attention”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Ev Williams, chief executive of online publisher Medium and Twitter co-founder, to talk about upping Twitter’s character limit (2:20), the dark side of the Internet (3:40), the power of the web in politics (6:00), starting four companies (7:15), the idea behind Medium (9:35), the problem with the ad-based web (11:30), pivoting (13:15), putting up a paywall (14:55), cat videos vs investigative journalism (16:40), his new “pay-for-claps” model (19:10), the broken media (20:00), why it’s so hard to make money from content online (24:00), Twitter’s problem with “trolls” (27:50), and anonymity (29:00), Silicon Valley’s awakening (30:55), and his worst day of work (34:30). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
9/30/201736 minutes, 33 seconds
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Plenty's Matt Barnard: "You’re eating year-old apples”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Matt Barnard, co-founder of indoor-farming startup Plenty, to talk about building a ‘global agricultural utility’ (4:25), America’s outsized appetite (6:00), eating old apples (9:00), why tomatoes are terrible in Britain (11:20), building 500 city-centre farms around the world (14:30), luring Softbank as an investor (16:40), and Jeff Bezos (19:30), integrating with Amazon (20:20), why growing indoors works (22:50), using less than 1% the water that normal farms need (24:20), machine learning (26:30), selling cheap fruit and veg (28:00), recreating the Mediterranean in a warehouse (29:15), huge energy bills (30:15), and changing a 10,000-year old business model (31:30). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
9/23/201735 minutes, 29 seconds
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Plug and Play's Saeed Amidi: "We invest a little money, then pray a lot"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Saeed Amidi, founder of Plug and Play, one of the world’s largest startup accelerators, to talk about how he invests in 150 companies each year (2:50), chickening out of an Airbnb investment (4:10), arriving from Iran (7:50), starting a bottled water company (9:00), becoming an angel investor (11:40), investing in Google when it was just three people (12:45), his $100m payday from Dropbox (14:30), backing Peter Thiel at Paypal (16:05), investing judo (17:20), why accelerators help (20:30), his London plans (22:50), trying to find the Uber of insurance (25:30), the problem with tech tourism (28:40), on whether unicorns face extinction (32:05), if the Silicon Valley model can be exported (35:00), and why he likes to back immigrants and foreigners (36:55). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
9/16/201739 minutes, 31 seconds
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Uber's Frances Frei: "Culture can kill a company, full stop"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Uber’s new head of leadership and renowned company doctor Frances Frei to talk about what she found when she walked into Uber (2:30), its army of first-time managers (5:30), taking Uber to school (6:30), the company's ‘toxic’ culture (7:40), the problem with startups (9:15), arriving as a woman (11:00), the importance of culture (12:20) overhauling Harvard Business School (13:00), making the right diagnosis (17:40), taking advantage of a crisis (18:15), necessary turnover (20:00), the power of diversity (22:40), having less 'do-overs' (23:30), harnessing Uber’s aggression (25:30), being a college basketball player (27:10), stepping on toes (28:30), Uber’s board upheaval (29:45), leadership by committee (31:55), and office push-ups (36:15). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
9/9/201738 minutes, 10 seconds
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Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer: "Make Data Great Again"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Steve Ballmer, former Microsoft CEO and one of the world’s richest men, to talk about retiring with a $33bn fortune (1:55), launching his new project USA Facts (3:00), losing his shirt investing in Twitter (3:55), starting as employee number 30 at Microsoft (5:20), what disruption looked like in 1980 (9:20), the most important negotiation of his life (11:25), being Microsoft’s biggest investor (13:00), why he started USA Facts (15:05), on “Making Data Great Again” (16:05), fake news (17:00), on whether he wants to run for office (22:10), spending $2bn on the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers (24:00), when he tried to buy Yahoo for $45bn (27:20), his biggest mistake (29:15), and the next big thing (30:20). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
9/2/201733 minutes, 32 seconds
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Marc Andreessen: "Darwin has kicked in"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Marc Andreessen, founder of Internet pioneer Netscape and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, to talk about the early days of the Internet (2:45), the "absurd" power of the web giants (7:30), delivery robots (10:45), the ease of starting an web company today (12:00), the ideal time to invest (15:00), the truth about artificial intelligence (16:30), the “luddite” panic (25:45), industries tech is aiming for next (33:00), why the answer to our problems is more technology (36:00), whether the big Internet companies are too big (37:30), why he told Mark Zuckerberg to turn down a takeover from Yahoo (39:30), how he's not worried about screen time for his 2-year-old son (43:10), and why the disruption of all human activity is only just getting started (44:45). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
8/26/201747 minutes
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SPECIAL: inside Silicon Valley's quest to defeat ageing

The Sunday Times' tech correspondent Danny Fortson talks to the scientists and executives pledging to redefine life as we know it about why we may be finally on the cusp of an age revolution (2:00), taking the pain out of being old (6:00), the wonder drugs already in circulation (7:45), on whether we are playing god (17:45), the rejuvenating effects of young blood (22:30), freezing your stem cells (26:45), the merging of artificial intelligence and medicine (30:00), and what the future of ageing looks like (37:00).SUBSCRIBE: find all our episodes at sundaytimes.co.uk/dannyinthevalley and on Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/danny-in-the-valley/id1233991021 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
8/19/201744 minutes, 21 seconds
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Boxed.com's Chieh Huang: “1999 called, they want their business model back”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Chieh Huang, founder of Boxed.com, to talk about setting up the “Costco for millennials” in a two-car garage (1:30), why Brexit and small houses make coming to the UK hard (3:00), growing up as a son of immigrants (5:30), making his first fortune selling an office-decoration game to Zynga (9:00), the entrepreneurial itch (17:30), taking on the $200bn big-box retail industry (20:30), struggling for funding (23:00), the challenge of shipping giant boxes (26:30), being an “undercorn” (29:00), paying university fees for the children of his workers (30:00), unlimited maternity leave (31:15), the financial calculus behind those benefits (34:15), predictive shopping (37:15), and trying to please a Tiger Mom (39:45). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
8/12/201741 minutes, 27 seconds
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Ring CEO Jamie Siminoff: "You just bankrupted the company."

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Jamie Siminoff, founder of Ring, the video doorbell company, to talk about about getting rejected on national television (2:00), turning failure into funding (4:00), putting his email address on every box (11:00), being lambasted by "nasty" British customers (12:15), following the James Dyson model (14:00), doing 24 hours on the home shopping television, (17:00), starting ten other companies (19:00), getting his first outside money (21:45), spending $1m to buy the ‘ring.com’ domain (26:15), luring Sir Richard Branson as an investor (32:45), being sued by a giant rival (34:45), showing up at customers’ houses (38:00), and shipping a faulty product that nearly bankrupted him (39:45). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
8/5/201743 minutes, 7 seconds
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Pullstring CEO Oren Jacob: “Alexa, order me 100 gallons of chocolate ice cream”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Oren Jacob, former CTO of film studio Pixar and founder of computer conversation startup Pullstring to talk about the new age of voice technology and talking Barbie (2:30), how the Amazon Echo ended the family shopping trip (7:30), his years at Pixar (12:00), building Mrs Potatohead (13:30), how a stuffed bunny inspired his startup (14:45), cold-calling speech experts (18:30), doing market research in a tent (20:30), raising the first round of venture capital (23:30), the difficulty of doing speech recognition for children (25:30), the many tech revolutions making voice systems possible (28:45), turning algorthms into characters (36:00), whether bots kill jobs (40:00), expecting too much from machines (46:00), and the importance of a voice assistant elegantly saying “I don’t know” (47:45). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
7/29/201752 minutes, 32 seconds
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Headspace CEO Rich Pierson: ”This is my business partner, the ex-Buddhist monk.”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Rich Pierson, co-founder of Headspace, the popular meditation app, to talk about how it started in London nine years ago (6:30), meeting his co-founder (8:00), quitting his job marketing deodorant (9:15), starting out with group meditation events (13:00), accidental focus groups (16:00), moving to California (16:45), going from 18 to 170 employees (19:30), layoffs and mistakes (20:00), convincing investors to put money into mindfulness (21:30), competing with 3,000 rival apps (25:00), struggling to manage people (30:00), helping nurses with “compassion fatigue’ (34:00), and signing up big companies (34:45). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
7/22/201736 minutes, 43 seconds
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Evernote founder Phil Libin: “I sold my first company for $500”

The Sunday Times tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Phil Libin, founder of Evernote, one of the first companies to be labelled a “unicorn”, to talk about his plan to create the Netflix of artificial intelligence (1:00), growing up poor (3:30), selling his first company at 16 (6:00), starting another after September 11 (9:45), creating Evernote (11:00), being one of the first apps in the App Store (13:45), getting funding from fanboys (17:00), being saved by a random Swede (19:30), the downside of the hype cycle (21:30), leaving Evernote (24:30), becoming a venture capitalist (25:45), his worst day at work (29:30), bureaucracy robots (32:45), and building something for yourself (36:00). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
7/16/201737 minutes, 33 seconds
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Planet CEO Will Marshall: "We swept the leaves out of the garage and started building satellites"

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Will Marshall, founder of Planet, a billion-dollar startup that operates the world’s largest constellation of satellites, to talk about taking a picture of earth every day (2:30), making satellites the size of shoeboxes (4:30), the space renaissance (6:30) increasing crop yields from 300 miles overhead (10:30), selling data to hedge funds (14:45), buying Google’s satellite arm (15:45), the rocket bottleneck (16:30), how smartphones changed space (18:45), the perils of rubbish travelling at 20,000 mph (20:15), blowing up satellites (22:30), how he came to America from Britain (23:45), the future of the space business (28:30) and creating an accidental unicorn (29:45). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
7/8/201733 minutes, 4 seconds
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True Ventures' Jon Callaghan: 'You've got to fail with class'

The Sunday Times tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Jon Callaghan, founder of True Ventures, on investing in things before there is a market (3:15), finding Fitbit (6:00), backing big ideas (9:15), celebrating failure (16:00), a drone investment that crashed (21:00), backing Wordpress (26:00), why we're not in a bubble (27:15), turning computers on human health (32:00), why venture capital is a weird business (35:00), how money gets in the way of good ideas (39:45) and why robots are 'the next big thing' (42:15). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
7/1/201744 minutes, 44 seconds
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Thumbtack CEO Marco Zappacosta: "We got 42 'no's' before we got a 'yes'"

The Sunday Times tech corespondent Danny Fortson brings on Marco Zappacosta, the 31-year old founder of Thumbtack to talk about building a billion-dollar startup, getting rejected 42 times by venture capitalists (7:00), finally getting a "yes" (10:30), the importance of having entrepreneur parents (13:30), the myth of overnight success (14:30), competing with Amazon (17:30), insecurity in the "gig" economy (21:30), the atomisation of work (26:30), his worst day (31:30) and advice to his younger self (35:00). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
6/24/201736 minutes, 55 seconds
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Mitch and Freada Kapor: "Uber is a seven-foot tall 12-year old"

The Sunday Times' tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Silicon Valley power couple and investors Mitch and Freda Kapor to talk about publicly challenging Uber, on Freada's pioneering work on workplace sexual harassment (6:30), on whether Uber can be fixed (9:45), their early days at Lotus (12:30), investing in startups (16:00), how they found Uber (18:45), how tech can fix itself (23:00), the evolution of hacking (27:30), the need for Internet "peace talks" (29:15), and the backlash from their Uber letter (32:15) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
6/17/201734 minutes, 21 seconds
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Slack co-founder Cal Henderson: 'Email is the cockroach of the Internet'

The Sunday Times' tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Cal Henderson, co-founder and CTO of Slack, the wildly popular business messaging platform, on founding photo sharing company Flickr (2:30), its ill-fated sale to Yahoo (6:00), starting again (9:00), the accident that became Slack (10:30), being a unicorn (14:30), his early days in London (17:00), learning to be an optimist (19:15), why he's not worried by Microsoft (21:00), 'Calloween' (25:00), the power of emojis (28:00), what's it's like to be personally worth hundreds of millions of dollars (32:45) and loving Lego (34:00). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
6/10/201735 minutes, 22 seconds
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Hyperloop's Dirk Ahlborn: “The moon landing of transport”

The Sunday Times tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Dirk Ahlborn, chief executive of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies to talk about traveling at airline speeds over land, why the idea has failed in the past, (7:00) his part-time army of scientists (11:00), Trump putting a hyperloop on the wall with Mexico (17:30), the end of short-haul flights (26:00) bringing the first "pods" into service by 2020 (42:00) making it free to ride (45:00) and why using freelancers is the best way to make the hyperloop a reality (50:00) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
6/3/201757 minutes, 28 seconds
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Meta AR's Ryan Pamplin: "The end of the flatties"

The Sunday Times tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Ryan Pamplin of Meta, developer of augmented reality glasses, to talk about the next paradigm in computing and why it won't be the another Google glass (4:30), replacing the smartphone (7:00), the death of privacy (14:30), when holograms will replace text books (23:00), Disney's plans (27:00), a life full of spam (33:00), what Apple's going to do (35:00), typing with your mind (42:00) and hoverboards, obviously. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
5/27/201749 minutes, 40 seconds
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Jason Calacanis: "A cacophony of idiots"

The Sunday Times' tech correspondent brings on Jason Calacanis, one of Silicon Valley's most prolific "angel" investors, to talk about being one of the first investors in Uber (3:00), being the Cesc Fabregas of investing (9:00), how to fix Uber (12:00) how to make it as a foreign entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, Google and Facebook's damaging monopolies (28:00) having more Twitter followers than Barack Obama (38:00) and buying Tesla's very first Model S. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
5/20/201743 minutes, 53 seconds
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Comet Labs' Saman Farid: "Let's be friends with the robots"

The Sunday Times tech correspondent brings on Saman Farid, a investor who specialises in all things robotic to talk about how artificial intelligence is making machines smart (6:00), robots that pick apples (10:00), how China is planning to outlaw human drivers (15:00), why the building industry is about to be turned upside down, burger bots and maid bots (25:00), the end of accountants (33:00) and the future of humanity. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
5/12/201744 minutes, 12 seconds