Author: Alex Kantrowitz

Nir Eyal is the bestselling author of Hooked and Indistractable. He joins Big Technology Podcast for a spirited debate over whether we're actually addicted to our phones, the ethics of app developers who use tricks to keep us coming back, and what to do about it.

You can find Nir's books here:

 http://geni.us/Indistractable and http://geni.us/hooked

Here's an Indistractable summary article: https://www.nirandfar.com/skill-of-the-future/

And a distraction guide: https://www.nirandfar.com/distractions/

And a schedule maker tool: https://nirandfar.com/schedule-maker/

Scott Heiferman is the founder of Meetup, a website that connects people online and gets them to meet each other offline. Heiferman joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss whether the internet can still bring people together vs. tear them apart, the latter of which it's done plenty of recently. This wide-ranging conversation gets into people's declining faith in institutions, our friendships and loneliness, Facebook's role in all this, virtual reality's potential, and the new company Heiferman is building today.

Sheera Frenkel is a New York Times reporter and author of the best-selling book, An Ugly Truth. She joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss her hit book and her reporting process. We address critics's claims that Facebook reporters are harsh to the company because they’re mad Trump won, and they’re also upset that social media is eroding their gatekeeping power. Frenkel listens to these critiques and shares her perspective.

Shelly Banjo is Bloomberg's New York Bureau Chief. She's also the host of Foundering, a podcast mini-series that documents TikTok's rise. Banjo joins Big Technology Podcast for a conversation about how TikTok's massive global reach creates serious data security risks and also opens up rival countries to influence operations from the Chinese government.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr wants to provide internet access to the people in Cuba so they can document and share the abuses of their government without censorship. Commissioner Carr, who rose to his rank after initially serving as an FCC intern, joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss his plan, how the technology would work, and the ethics and advisability of accelerating regime change by providing internet access to a population.

Eliot Brown And Maureen Farrell are the authors of The Cult of We: WeWork and the Great Start-Up Delusion. The new book digs into the rise and fall of Adam Neumann's WeWork. And though it's the story of one company, it's really a lens through which you can see all the markets' irrationality. The authors join for a macro discussion of the factors that led WeWork — a real estate company — to become the world's most valuable "tech" startup. And why it couldn't keep the show rolling.

Check out the book: https://amzn.to/3Btv6XS

Chris Best is the CEO of Substack, an email newsletter platform that lets writers send newsletters and charge subscribers a monthly fee. The platform — which I use for my Big Technology newsletter — is squarely in the middle of the battle over online speech, looked at by some as an alternative that will displace professional media.

Best joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss his company's position in these speech battles, how he personally feels about the professional media, his investor Andressen Horowitz, and whether paid subscriptions are a better model than advertising.

You can subscribe to my Big Technology Newsletter here: https://bigtechnology.substack.com/

The OneZero story https://onezero.medium.com/the-moderation-war-is-coming-to-spotify-substack-and-clubhouse-9fe00672091b

“Are you trying to fucking destroy the company?” That’s what Bill Gates told Microsoft board member Maria Klawe when she asked why Microsoft wouldn’t consider a single women out of 50 candidates it was evaluating to replace then-CEO Steve Ballmer. When Microsoft settled on Satya Nadella, he later joined Klawe at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women In Computing and told her that instead of asking for a raise, women should just have faith in the system to get it right. The incident caused an uproar, and Nadella apologized and promised to do better. One year later, Microsoft’s board pushed Klawe out, telling her it was looking for more “conventional” women in business. Klawe joins Big Technology Podcast to tell the full, shocking, uncut story. 

The BI story: https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-director-maria-klawe-satya-nadella-raises-gaffe-karma-2021-5

Always Day One: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07V65YKZT

Jim Lanzone is the CEO of Tinder. He took over the world’s most popular dating app last summer, in the heart of the pandemic, and is starting to evolve its product to give people new ways to connect. Lanzone joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss how Gen Z wants to date online, how their behavior differs from millennials, and how that factors into his product vision. We also talk about the business of Tinder, whether Lanzone lets his kids use the app, and where its next challenger might come from.

Adam Kovacevich is the CEO of the Big Tech-funded Chamber of Progress. The former Google policy executive joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss the origins of his organization and why Big Tech would rather fund him vs. stick their own necks out. Tune in for a revealing conversation of what happens behind the scenes in Big Tech's battle against regulation.