Zach Coelius is the managing partner of Coelius Capital. He's participating in an unprecedented moment where venture capitalists like him simply can't lose. There's so much money flooding the private markets that, as he put it, "any idiot with a checkbook looks like a genius right now." Coelius joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss why this is happening, where it will lead, and who gets hurt when the party ends. Stay tuned for the third segment where we read his tweets and mostly talk about San Francisco's many challenges.
Big Technology Podcast - The Motivations of Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen — With Her Lawyer Lawrence Lessig
Lawrence Lessig is Frances Haguen's lawyer and a Harvard Law School professor. He joins Big Technology Podcast to address the various questions about Haugen's motivations, backers, and intent that have percolated since she came forward. We start by addressing whether the the leaked documents should be available to all and move into the conspiracies about her. A lively discussion follows.
Big Technology Podcast - Are We Having a Moral Panic About Instagram? — With NYT’s Farhad Manjoo
Farhad Manjoo is an opinion columnist for the New York Times. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss whether the criticism of Instagram's impact on kids is overblown, the subject of a recent column. Stay tuned for the third segment, where we discuss Farhad's views of virtual reality, his Thanksgiving column, and his cats.
Subscribe to Big Technology: https://bigtechnology.substack.com/
Farhad's story about Instagram: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/opinion/instagram-teenagers.html
Big Technology Podcast - Amazon Rigs Search, Social Media ‘Ampliganda,’ Netflix Protests — With Adrianne Jeffries, Renee DiResta, and Zoë Schiffer
Join us for a 'mega' episode with three guests! The Markup investigative reporter Adrianne Jeffries leads off with a discussion of Amazon's self-preferencing in search. Stanford Internet Observatory's Renee DiResta joins for our second segment to discuss her story on bottom-up propaganda on social media, something she calls 'ampliganda.' Verge Reporter Zoë Schiffer rounds out the week with a look into the state of worker activism at Netflix and Apple.
Check out Adrianne's story on The Markup, Renee's in The Atlantic, and Zoe's on The Verge.
Big Technology Podcast - Is Social Media A Scapegoat For Bigger Problems? — With Charlie Warzel at Unfinished Live
Charlie Warzel writes the Galaxy Brain newsletter on Substack, a publication he started after a career at The New York Times and BuzzFeed. Warzel joins Big Technology Podcast in a live recording at Unfinished Live to discuss what a nuanced conversation about social media's harms should look like. Stay tuned for the second half where we discuss Warzel's views on post-Covid workplace culture, the subject Out of Office, a forthcoming book for which he is a co-author.
Big Technology Podcast - Why Facebook Will Keep Building For Kids — With Michael Sayman
Michael Sayman was 16 years old when Facebook recruited him to join the company. The overture arrived as he was sitting in math class, and the teacher promptly took away his iPad. Sayman joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss why and how Facebook builds products for kids and teens (something he has intimate knowledge of) and the reasons why it won't stop.
You can find Sayman's new book, App Kid, here: https://amzn.to/3uNDazI
Big Technology Podcast - Amazon Builds a Robot and Threatens Apple — With Wired’s Lauren Goode
Wired senior writer Lauren Goode was on hand this week as Amazon introduced Astro, a home robot, and a Ring home-monitoring drone. Goode joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss her reaction to the products. And in the second half, stay tuned for a discussion of how Apple and Amazon are on a collision course even though they build products very differently.
Big Technology Podcast - Unraveling The Mystery Of Peter Thiel — With Max Chafkin
Max Chafkin is the author of The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power, which debuts this week. The book is a fascinating, inside look into the life and rise of Silicon Valley’s most powerful and controversial venture capitalist. In this interview, we discuss whether Thiel is representative of Silicon Valley or an anomaly, and dig into who he really is and what motivates him.
You can find the book here: https://amzn.to/3AwAKHB
Big Technology Podcast - A Look Into Facebook’s Soul — With WSJ’s Jeff Horwitz and Ex-FB Exec. Brian Boland
Jeff Horwitz is the Wall Street Journal reporter who unearthed a trove of internal Facebook documents that reveal a damning disconnect between what the company says in public and its actions inside. Brian Boland is a former Facebook executive who spent more than 11 years inside the company. The two come on to discuss Horowitz's bombshell series of reports, unpacking what they tell us about Facebook, dissecting the company's responses, and looking at potential solutions.
Enjoy this bonus episode!
Big Technology Podcast - Inside The Theranos Trial — With Erin Griffith of The New York Times
Erin Griffith is the New York Times reporter at the trial for Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. She joins Big Technology Podcast to bring us inside the courtroom, explaining why Holmes is on trial and whether she'll be a rare founder to face consequences for misleading investors. We also discuss whether Holmes is emblematic of the venture capital world's downsides, or an outlier.
You can find Erin on Twitter, @eringriffith