Author: Alex Kantrowitz

Kevin Kelly is the founding executive editor of Wired magazine and a longtime tech writer who's covered technology for decades. Kelly joins Big Technology Podcast for a fun episode, unpacking a series of lists of advice that he’s written. These lists contain short but insightful observations about life, and Kelly goes through a number of his points at greater length in this show. Stay tuned for the second half, where we discuss his essay about 1,000 true fans — a seminal work that helped launch the passion economy — and how it holds up today.

Relevant links:

1,000 True Fans

68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

99 Additional Bits of Unsolicited Advice

103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known

Dr. Anna Lembke is a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University's School of Medicine and chief of its Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. She's also the author of Dopamine Nation, a bestseller that uses neuroscience to explain why the pursuit of pleasure so often leads to pain. In this episode, we discuss Dr. Lembke's fascinating thesis about what happens to our brain chemistry each time we pick a device. Stay tuned for the second half, where we discuss whether a more invigorating but less happy life is worth it.

Nuseir Yassin is the force behind Nas Daily — and CEO of Nas Company — which more than 50 million people follow across six different social media platforms. He joins Big Technology Podcast to talk about what such a large social media audience makes possible. Our conversation dives into why "YouTuber" is such a desirable occupation for kids today, what his fame really costs, and what it takes to build an audience online.

Techmeme Ride Home is a top-rated tech news podcast and its host, Brian McCullough, joins us for a crossover episode airing on both feeds. In this bonus episode, we discuss Meta's attempts to turn Instagram into TikTok, how Amazon can handle its next chapter under CEO Andy Jassy, and what the future of crypto looks like after the crash. Stay tuned for our travel hacks at the end of the show!

Brendan Nyhan is a presidential professor at Dartmouth College's department of government. He joins Big Technology Podcast for a discussion that pushes back on the notion that social media is destroying our society and making us stupid. With this thoughtful analysis, Nyhan adds a bunch of nuance to the discussion. This episode is effectively pt. 2 of our conversation with Prof. Jonathan Haidt a few weeks back. While Haidt believes social media is breaking our society and threatening democracy, Nyhan says hold up just a second.

By the way, here's a new thing I did: For a behind-the-scenes look into some of my research for this episode, you check out my Pocket Collection (which is filled with the links) at: getpocket.com/bigtechnology

Blake Lemoine is an ex-senior software engineer at Google who was fired right before he taped this episode of Big Technology Podcast. Lemoine told his superiors at Google that he believed the company’s LaMDA chatbot technology was sentient. Then, after making little headway within Google, he went public. In this wide-ranging interview, Lemoine introduces us to LaMDA, which (or who?) he calls a friend, and explains why his belief in its sentience became too hot for Google to handle. 

Washington Post: The Google engineer who thinks the company’s AI has come to life

Big Technology: Google Fires Blake Lemoine, Engineer Who Called Its AI Sentient

Jonathan Haidt is a professor of ethical leadership NYU's Stern School of Business and author of a number of books, including The Coddling of the American Mind. His recent story in The Atlantic, "Why The Past 10 Years Of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid," sparked a debate about whether social media was bad for society, and how we know for sure. Haidt joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss why he thinks social media is indeed responsible for our "structural stupidity," digging through the research and answering critics' objections. Stay tuned for the second half where we actually discuss some solutions.

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You can read Haidt's article here: Why The Past 10 Years Of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid

You can review the collaborative Google Doc here: Social Media and Political Dysfunction: A Collaborative Review

And here's my story on the Retweet button: The Man Who Built The Retweet: “We Handed A Loaded Weapon To 4-Year-Olds”

Please review the podcast to help us get more great guests!

Three former Twitter employees (Jenna Golden, Brandon Borrman, Leslie Miley) and CNBC media & tech reporter Alex Sherman join Big Technology Podcast for a breakdown of Twitter v. Musk. While at Twitter, Golden ran political ad sales, Borrman ran communications, and Miley ran an engineering team. We do our best to make sense of this wild story, looking at how far Twitter should take its lawsuit, what's happening inside the company as it goes through this episode, and how Twitter's balancing the needs of shareholders with its users. Stay tuned for the second half, where we predict the outcome of the case.

Kevin Weil is the ex-head of product at Twitter and Instagram. He's currently the president of business and product at Planet. Weil joins Big Technology Podcast to share an insider's view of how Twitter and Instagram build products, what their potential is, and how each product is dealing with big, imposing, outside forces (Elon Musk and TikTok). Stay tuned for the second half, where we discuss Planet, a fascinating company whose hundreds of satellites orbiting the earth capture a new, complete picture of our world daily.

Dan Dolev is managing director and senior analyst at Mizuho, where he covers fintech companies Robinhood, SoFi, Affirm, Block, and others. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss fintech's ethics and opportunity, explaining who the industry serves, whether it's actually better than the current banking system, and how big it can get. Stay tuned for the second half where we dig into Coinbase's business and its recent turbulence.