Danny In The Valley

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Noam Shazeer, founder of Character.ai, to talk about his work at Google (4:00), joining the search giant in 2000 (6:50), what is deep learning (5:10), starting on language models in 2015 (9:10), starting the company in 2021 (10:50), virtual therapists (15:00), monetizing (20:40), what is possible (23:00), growing up coding and doing maths (31:00), winning the international Math Olympiad (32:20), how this compares to the Internet itself (34:30). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Matt LeDucq, founder of Forum Mobility, to talk about drayage (4:25), its health impacts (6:20), starting out in renewable energy twenty years ago (9:10), how drayage is like solar decades ago (12:10), the coming wave of electric lorries (13:30), building giant depots (16:45), the cost question (18:20), and electric grid challenge (20:20), being the tip of the spear (23:25), deciding to start the company (28:50), putting steel in the ground (34:10), learning to be a CEO (39:45), and what the rest of the world is doing (42:10). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Cameron McLain, co-founder of Giant, to talk about why he chose the name (3:05), what he did before starting a venture fund (7:00), moving to America (8:30), dabbling in Buddhism philosophy (10:30), getting into the music industry (12:45), starting and selling a company (15:25), finding good founders (17:30), bringing in Lord Browne as an advisor (24:50), the importance of timing (26:20), raising money right as the pandemic hit (29:40), the climate opportunity (33:15), betting on biology (36:00), and his worst day (41:00). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Lara Hodgson, founder of NOW, to talk about her previous companies (3:15), how a payment problem led to the launch of Now (8:55), meeting US political star Stacey Abrams (12:15), the Now account (15:15), the origins of the “net 30 “ payment model (22:00), the state of the economy (23:30), her meandering career (28:15), taking advantage of being a women in a male-dominated industry (33:15), focusing on impact rather than your passions (38:00), and why she looks out the window (40:40). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Trevor Martin of Mammoth Biosciences, to talk about “programming biology” (4:10), the slow grind of innovation (7:25), CRISPR (10:20), the problems he’s trying to solve (16:15), curing thousands of diseases (19:40), reaching for a science fiction future (24:40), meeting Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna (27:40), starting the company (35:00), becoming the chief executive (38:50), raising $265m (43:45), and what comes next (47:15). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Saman Farid, founder of Formic, to tlak about why we need more robots (3:40), the labour shortage (7:20), the growing universe of jobs that are automatable (10:00), the latest AI bubble (13:45), growing up in China (21:20), being inspired by China’s rapid industrialization (23:30), how AMerica is losing 10,000 factory workers each day (25:20), starting his first couple companies in China (29:30), the deep learning revolution (31:15), convincing factory owners to install their robots (36:40), why he thinks more robots is better for society (40:00). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Callery Means, founder of TrueMed, to talk about his early days in politics (4:20), how the food industry avoided sugar taxes (7:45), the links between industry and institutions of trust (12:00), the “food compass” and why it says Lucky Charms is better than chicken breast (18:00), why we consume 100 times more sugar than we used to (23:45), what TrueMed is (29:45), how he aims to rebalance incentives in the healthcare industry (35:10), food as medicine (39:00), and trying to spark a movement (43:00). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Seshu Madhavapeddy co-founder and chief executive of Frore Systems, to talk about why our devices underperform and we don;t know it (4:20), the problem with fans (8:00), inventing a new chip (13:00), how it works (17:30), why he started the company (20:30), getting into an IIT in India (21:40), leaving Nortel at the peak of the dotcom boom (26:00), startup lessons (28:10), raising $116 million (33:00), getting Frore’s chips into computers (34:50), the recruiting challenge (41:40), and his worst day (44:00). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Eddie Martucci, co-founder and chief executive of Akili Interactive, to talk about making the first prescription video game (3:40), the original pitch (6:10), sweeping the floors of his parents’ pharmacy (13:20), how he landed on video games as medicine (16:40), why ADHD is more present that it used to be (19:00), targeting a “weak link” in the brain (24:00), how the game algorithmically hones it treatment to each player (27:55), targeting conditions like depression and MS (29:40), getting insurance and health systems to pay for it (33:00), looking abroad (43:30), and running a public company (46:40). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on analyst Benedict Evans to talk about Chat GPT and machine learning (5:00), how it gets things wrong (10:00), the “fluent bullshit” problem (12:00), whether this is a genuine breakthrough moment (15:20), what this means for humans (18:25), “prompt engineering” (23:00), humans as curators rather than creators (26:40), tech’s mid-life crisis (27:45), the future of “search” (32:10), using AI do make “no-code” software (35:00), where we go from here (39:00), and the illusion of creativity (42:45). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Bryan Johnson, tech entrepreneur and Kernel founder, to talk about reversing his biological age with “the blueprint” (4:50), eating dinner at 11:00 am (12:15), pleasure through pain (15:45), rethinking what it means to be human (17:30), changing society (23:00), how this philosophy dovetails with his startup Kernel (24:50), the “cognitive crisis" (26:45), living outside the norm (30:45), the autonomous self (33:15), assembling a team of 25 people to create the blueprint (36:50), being a “rejuvenation athlete” (38:40), firing himself (43:50), creating a community of rejuvenation enthusiasts (47:15), how long he wants to live (50:50), the rise of the machines (52:50), and automating away willpower (57:50).Bryan Johnson's Blueprint: https://blueprint.bryanjohnson.co/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Joshua March, founder of SciFi Foods to talk about why he is trying to brew burgers (3:30), mixing meat and plants (6:00), the cost challenge (8:00), growing up in small town England and his first startup (11:50), launching a social media software company (15:00), finding a technical co-founder and starting a meat company (17:20), leaning into the science with its branding (25:20), the cost challenge (30:30), the road to regulatory approval (37:40), winning hearts and minds (40:15), and the vegan mafia (41:10). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Patrick Torbey and Lio Mora about engineering plants (3:45), the age of biology (6:15), their $180 houseplant (11:25), indoor pollution (13:45), meeting at a startup incubator (17:30), founder dating (20:55), raising money (24:30), spending four years developing the first plant (27:25), the market education problem (33:00), why certifications is more difficult than it seems (39:30), the maintenance challenge (41:45), and their worst day (47:05). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Andrew Beebe, to talk about “world positive” investing (4:00), the dotcom boom (5:30), zeroing in on climate years ago (10:10), how a cold call to Google worked (12:10), how he met Twitter founder Ev Williams (16:00), investing in the downturn (19:10), screening for world positive companies (23:45), how he coaches founders (28:20), climate tech whiplash and why this time is different (32:000), and his worst day of work (40:30). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Navin Chaddha of Mayfield Fund, to talk about the future of work (3:10), and Silicon Valley (9:50), managing $2bn with seven people (13:55), his first startup in the dotcom boom (18:00), the importance of timing (22:50), holding his nerve at the recent peak (28:10), the other two companies he started (33:10), the lessons from he took from them (38:10), the current downturn (42:05), how he made it here from India (46:50), going through the IIT system (50:00), and what he’s excited to back (55:05). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Marcus Gerhardt, chief executive of Blackrock Neurotech, to talk about his boarding school days in Wales (4:00), his dotcom adventures (10:00), pivoting to brain-computer interfaces (16:00), the “Utah array” (18:40), how in 2006 the first person sent an email with his thoughts (20:30), starting the company (23:00), the state of the technology today (26:40), targeting tetraplegics (33:00), getting investment (38:15), going to market (41:30), and reaching an inflection point (47:40). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on co-founder and chief executive of Checkerspot, to talk about using algae to make skis (3:55), what he leaned at pioneer Solazyme (8:30), naming the company after a butterfly (16:10), how synthetic biology is like computers were in the 1980’s (18:00), starting out as an investment banker (21:15), switching to biotech (27:00), and then to Solazyme (28:30), algae oil skis (32:15), convincing investors (36:30), the rise of climate tech (42:00), and his worst day (48:00). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Michael Selden, co-founder and chief executive of Finless Foods, to talk about growing tuna in a lab (2:45), getting the price down from $300,000 to $150 per pound (5:45), a publicly available bluefin tuna genome (8:45), replacing fetal bovine serum (11:30), using plant based material for the flesh “scaffolding” (14:20), scaling up (16:10), aiming for the mass market (19:55), why almost all American seafood is imported (21:20), the problems with seafood (22:40), the hardest moment(s) (27:30), the challenge of turning “clean meat” into an industry (32:00), and the science that is yet to be figured out (35:40). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Peter Reinhardt, co-founder and chief executive Charm Industrial, to talk about a different approach to carbon capture (3:30), overshooting our emissions (7:25), starting the company after a career in software (11:35), finding the Tesla roadster of CO2 removal (14:30), the potential (16:55), scaling up (19:40), attracting investors (22:00), and the CO2 scoreboard (24:00). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Cody Friesen, founder of Source Water, to talk about using solar to solve the water problem (4:30), the messy energy transition (9:15), our reliance on “dino-juice” (11:00), how its panels work (13:00), improving performance (22:00), starting the company (24:55), luring investors (27:00), going from scientist to founder (30:50), creating a battery company (38:00), scaling up (40:00), and solving problems for seven generations hence (44:45). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.