Source Code: Recent Episodes
Protocol
Welcome to Source Code, Protocol's show about the people, power and politics of tech. Twice a week, we talk to the most important people, and about the most important stories, happening all over the world of tech.
This week, we dive into tech layoffs: which companies are hiring and firing — and what that means for job-seekers.
Then Ripple general manager Monica Long joins us to explain how some companies are trying to make cryptocurrency more sustainable — and why the crypto crash is so significant.
And finally, we discuss an important question: Where should next year’s Davos attendees dine out?
For more on the topics in this week's episode:
- Netflix’s layoffs reveal a larger diversity challenge in tech
- Everything you need to know about tech layoffs and hiring slowdowns
- 'TC or GTFO' may be a sign that Silicon Valley’s money obsession has gone too far
- Apple is raising its retail hourly starting salary to $22 and spreading anti-union messages
- Apple retail workers withdraw bid for union
- Is tech's hot job market flaming out?
- What downturn? A16z raises $4.5 billion for latest crypto fund
- The Ripple-SEC legal brawl could be a game-changer for crypto
This week, we break down why Elon Musk is tweeting about the S&P 500's ESG rankings — and why he might be right to be mad. Then we discuss how tech companies are failing to prevent mass shootings, and why the new Texas social media law might make it more difficult for platforms to be proactive.
Then Protocol's Biz Carson, author of the weekly VC newsletter Pipeline, joins us to explain the state of venture capital amidst plunging stocks and declining revenues. Should founders start panicking? The answer might surprise you.
And finally, we discuss an important question: Is Polaroid a high-tech camera company?
For more on the topics in this week's episode:
- Elon is mad about ESG ratings. He has a point.
- 'We’ll be here again': How tech companies try and fail to prevent terrorism
- Tech companies are under investigation for their role in the Buffalo shooting
- Social media’s legal foundation just crumbled in Texas. Here’s what’s next.
- So long, easy money
- The 'new normal' in startups was never normal
Subscribe to our daily Source Code newsletter to stay up to date on everything you need to know about the tech industry.
This week, we're diving into the crypto crash. What led luna to fall off a cliff? Are we seeing the dot-com bust, part two? Protocol fintech editor Owen Thomas explains it all to us. Then entertainment reporter Janko Roettgers joins us to share the inside scoop on his exclusive interview with Mark Zuckerberg. We learn why Meta is betting it all on the metaverse and Brian finally gets to ask the most pressing question on his mind this week: What does Mark smell like?
And finally, Caitlin and Brian take a moment to reminisce about the iPod, which was put out to pasture this week after more than two decades on the market.
For more on the topics in this week's episode:
- Exclusive: Mixed reality on Meta’s Quest offers a glimpse at the future of visual computing
- Mark Zuckerberg on his big metaverse bet: 'I feel a responsibility to go for it.'
- The crypto crash, explained
- The tech superbubble might burst
- Cryptocurrencies are tanking. This chart shows how bad it is.
This week, we’re talking the tech implications of the Supreme Court's draft ruling on Roe v. Wade, including how Amazon — a company not always synonymous with workers’ rights — has made a major commitment to ensure its employees living in states where abortion could be banned can still access health care. We’ll also explore the new climate misinformation war on Facebook to keep things extra uplifting. Then, Gizmodo reporter Shoshana Wodinsky joins us to explain how data brokers and ad tech firms buy and sell information that could put users at risk in a post-Roe world.
Finally, Caitlin and Brian take a breather from crushing sadness to consider the following very important question: Is Target tech?
For more on the topics in this week’s episode:
- Amazon’s $4,000 abortion benefit is more important than you think
- Climate denial is dead on Facebook. What replaced it is more insidious.
- Gizmodo: How to Get an Abortion in the Age of Surveillance
- Tech companies are figuring out how to respond to a post-Roe v. Wade world
- 13 states might ban abortion. At least 30 tech companies call those states home.
The Biden Administration set an ambitious climate goal: cutting carbon emissions in half by 2030. That prospect is looking less likely, experts say, and this week we discuss why — and where we go from here.
Then Protocol reporter Kate Kaye joins the podcast to explain what it means to open-source an algorithm, and why Elon Musk might run into challenges if he tries to spill Twitter's secret sauce to the public. Kate also teaches us the meaning of the cursed phrase "algorithmic disgorgement" and how the FTC is using it to police tech companies.
And finally, we answer a critical question: Are sleeping bag shoes tech?
For more on the topics in this week’s episode:
- Bloomberg: President Biden’s Climate Ambitions Are All But Dead
- Biden is bailing out nukes. He’ll need to do that and more.
- Manchin calls EV tax credit expansion 'ludicrous'
- The FTC’s 'profoundly vague' plan to force companies to destroy algorithms could get very messy
- The FTC’s new enforcement weapon spells death for algorithms
- The eve of 'algorithmic destruction'?
- Is it tech? Teva sleeping bag shoes
Don’t forget to smash the subscribe button for our Source Code newsletter to stay up to date on what’s happening in tech.
Same Source Code podcast, new sound. This week, Protocol editors and self-proclaimed soft-serve swirl Caitlin McGarry and Brian Kahn are taking over the pod as your new hosts.
This week, we talk about the great streaming shakeup, from Netflix’s subscriber decline to the not-so-surprising CNN+ shutdown. We also dive into tech companies’ favorite climate solution — unfortunately, it doesn’t exist yet. Then Protocol fintech editor Owen Thomas joins us to talk about Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover attempt. Is Musk’s hostile bid for real or is the world’s richest man simply on a $43 billion lark? Caitlin and Brian also debate the question on everyone’s mind: Are soft-serve machines tech?
For more on the topics in this week’s episode:
- All you need to know about Netflix’s advertising plans
- CNN+ was always doomed
- How much carbon dioxide removal do we actually need?
- Elon Musk's Twitter takeover bid: Almost all of your questions answered
Don’t forget to smash the subscribe button for our Source Code newsletter to stay up to date on what’s happening in tech.
Spotify doesn't want to just build a better way to listen to music. (Though, yes, it does want to do that.) The company has made clear over the last couple of years that its ambitions are much bigger: Spotify has invested deeply in podcasting both for creators and consumers, it has delved into the world of audiobook, it acquired a company to build a live-audio product, and in general it wants to be the home of audio online.
If you really want to understand where Spotify is going, though, forget the music and audio industry altogether. Look at what's happening with video online. YouTube is making video searchable, discoverable and wildly lucrative; TikTok is making it social, remixable and viral. Spotify wants to do all of that, but in your headphones instead of on your screen. And that means rethinking the way the entire audio business — and tech stack — works.
Gustav Soderstrom, Spotify's chief R&D officer and chief product officer, leads a team of thousands building the future the company imagines. He joined the Source Code podcast to talk about why audio was skipped over in the evolution of technology, how Spotify is trying to balance supporting an open ecosystem with building its own stuff, and how audio changes when you treat it like software. (One thing he didn't want to talk about? Joe Rogan, and the questions the company faces about content moderation and misinformation. That's for another episode.) He also talked about Spotify's ongoing quest to figure out how to bring all that audio into a single app in a way that makes sense.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Gustav Soderstrom on Twitter
- How Spotify uses Spotify
- Spotify’s audio revolution
- Spotify is taking on Clubhouse for audio-chat supremacy
- Spotify has plans to move beyond music and become the Instagram and TikTok of audio — Forbes
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Bringing you a recent Protocol Live, "Recruiting and retaining talent in the new world of work."
The “Great Resignation” has shaken up the tech industry in ways unseen. Employees are leaving their jobs without securing employment and 41% of workers reported at least thinking about leaving their company this year. Not to mention, tech workers have more bargaining power than ever.
How do you compete for top tech talent today? And what are the best ways to hold onto your employees in the new labor market? Join Protocol and a panel of talent and workplace specialists as they discuss the most innovative ways to recruit and retain great employees.
For more, and for the full video, check out Protocol's coverage of the event.
Frances Haugen. Susan Fowler. Edward Snowden. Erika Cheung. As the tech industry continues to face a reckoning, whistleblowers inside of companies are playing a huge role in bringing important information to light.
Sarah Alexander – everybody calls her Poppy — is a partner at the law firm Constantine Cannon, and works with whistleblowers all over the world. From the first meeting to what she calls the “cold-shower talk” about the hardships that come with going public, Alexander’s job is to help whistleblowers bring about the change they seek. It’s not easy for anyone involved, she said. But it might be getting easier.
Alexander joined the Source Code podcast to explain how whistleblowing works, why there have been so many high-profile whistleblowers in the tech industry, how companies and governments alike can better support whistleblowers, and much more.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Poppy Alexander on Twitter
- Constantine Cannon
- The Tech Worker Handbook
- Being a tech whistleblower is dangerous and expensive. Now there’s a guide to the risks.
- This was the year tech workers found their power
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Protocol Climate launched this week, so we sat down with editor Brian Kahn to talk about tech’s role in solving climate change, whether it’s possible to save the world and get rich at the same time, how to read a corporate climate plan, and much more.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Brian Kahn on Twitter
- How to read a tech company climate plan
- How to write a climate plan that doesn’t suck
- The hottest investment in 2021? Climate tech.
- Startups are popping up to offer carbon offsets. It’s raising thorny questions.
- Uber’s fight to shift drivers to EVs will be a massive uphill battle
- Cities are at the forefront of the climate revolution
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Jeff Kosseff’s last book turned out to be pretty prescient. He published “The Twenty-Six Words That Created The Internet,” a deep look at the history and future of Section 230, right as those 26 words became central to the regulatory fight over the future of the internet.
With his next book, Kosseff, a professor at the Naval Academy, may have done the same thing. The book is titled “The United States of Anonymous,” and it deals with the centuries-old argument about whether people should be allowed to say things without having to identify themselves. In the U.S., courts have given a lot of leeway and protection to anonymous speakers, but the internet has changed the equation, and companies and governments alike are still figuring out what to do.
Kosseff joined the Source Code podcast to discuss his new book, how technologies like bulletin boards and Tor and facial recognition are changing the way we think about anonymity, and why he thinks that even though anonymity allows bad people to do bad things, he thinks it’s still worth preserving. And even fighting for.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Jeff Kosseff
- Jeff Kosseff on Twitter
- The United States of Anonymous
- The Twenty-Six Words That Created The Internet
- How Facebook’s real-name policy changed social media forever
- “The Phone in My Pocket Was a Weapon Being Used Against Me”
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Ben Brody joins the show to discuss the state of the Section 230 debate, and why Justice Clarence Thomas wants it to come up in the Supreme Court so badly. Then, Lizzy Lawrence explains why so many startups are eager to disrupt PowerPoint, and why the future of meetings might be more like a late-night show. Finally, Kate Kaye discusses how enterprise companies are working with the military, and why those relationships seem to be worth the downsides.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Lizzy Lawrence on Twitter
- Want to engage your remote team? Turn that corporate presentation into 'The Tonight Show.'
- Ben Brody on Twitter
- Clarence Thomas really wants the Supreme Court to take up Section 230 now
- From 2020: Clarence Thomas thinks it's time to rein in Section 230
- Republican tech skeptics are flirting with progressives' choice for antitrust chief
- Kate Kaye on Twitter
- Working with the military is lucrative. For enterprise AI companies, it’s also a minefield.
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Apple’s latest launch event turned into something of a Mac showcase. And featured much more chip discussion than your average launch event. Protocol’s Caitlin McGarry joins the show to talk about the new Mac Studio, iPad Air, iPhone SE and everything else Apple announced on Tuesday, plus what it all means and why laptops and desktops are suddenly the hottest gadgets on the market.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Caitlin McGarry on Twitter
- Everything Apple announced on Tuesday — Wired
- Apple is now a computer company again
- Apple's new M1 Ultra fuses two chips together to make One Big Chip
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Issie Lapowsky joins the show to discuss how Meta, Twitter, YouTube and other platforms have responded to the war in Ukraine, and why their response is so much stronger than in the past. Then, Janko Roettgers dives into the rise and fall of RT, and why so many platforms banned the channel. Finally, Nick Statt explains how video games ended up so important to this crisis — along with a brief diversion into Amazon’s gaming strategy, which finally seems to be working.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Issie Lapowsky on Twitter
- Russia’s playing chicken with Facebook
- Twitter and Meta rush to protect user accounts in Ukraine
- Meta rolls out encrypted Instagram DMs in Russia and Ukraine
- Janko Roettgers on Twitter
- Accused of spreading propaganda, RT gets deplatformed
- RT America is closing down following worldwide backlash
- Nick Statt on Twitter
- Twitch takes aim at anti-vaxxers, Russian propaganda and QAnon
- Amazon's Luna cloud gaming service opens its doors
- EA is scrubbing Russian teams from its FIFA and hockey games
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Social networks don’t feel so … social anymore. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and the rest seem to be leaning ever further into entertainment, and away from helping people find and chat with people like them. But Glass is hoping to be different. The new photo-sharing social network is determined to find a better, less problematic, more social way to network.
Tom Watson and Stefan Borsje, the co-founders of Glass, have both worked in tech for years, and have seen the pitfalls that come to social apps. So they’ve set out to build Glass very differently. They’re not taking VC money, they’re not prioritizing growth and engagement above all else, and they won’t even show you how many times people liked your photo. In the process, they hope they’re building a place photographers might actually want to be.
Watson and Borsje joined the Source Code podcast to discuss Glass, the state and future of social networking, and what it takes to build something different.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Glass
- Tom Watson on Glass
- Stefan Borsje on Glass
- Glass’ Tom Watson — Om Malik
- Get Together: How to build a community with your people, by Bailey Richardson
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Today we’re bringing you another Protocol Live, this one on a subject near and dear to seemingly everyone in tech: how to build the metaverse. And maybe more important, how to build it right. Protocol’s Nick Statt and Janko Roettgers chatted with a panel of smart metaverse thinkers about the tools, standards, systems and rules for the metaverse, and why it matters so much to get them right from the beginning.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- The full live event: How to build the metaverse, and build it right
- Nick Statt on Twitter
- Janko Roettgers on Twitter
- Marc Petit on Twitter
- Tiffany Xingyu Wang on Twitter
- Sly Spencer Lee on Twitter
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Online dating hasn’t been novel for a few years now. It’s now the most common way people meet, and it’s only becoming more central to the way modern romance works. But the next shift is already beginning, as the internet begins to move out of the social networking phase and into whatever this crypto, metaverse, Web3 thing is going to become.
Dushyant Saraph, Match’s chief product and revenue officer, is in charge of figuring out what that shift looks like for dating and relationships. That means, yes, the metaverse! (Whatever that turns out to mean.) It also means finding ways to foster connection over long distances, on screens and through headphones. It means combining the digital and physical worlds in ways that make sense to users from all sorts of backgrounds and age brackets.
For the final episode in our monthlong series on how tech is shaping dating, love, sex, marriage and what relationships of all kinds look like in an increasingly digital world, Saraph joined the Source Code podcast to talk about VR dating, video chat, why we don’t need legs to have a good time in the metaverse and much more.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Dushyant Saraph on LinkedIn
- Match
- Dating juggernaut Match buys Seoul-based Hyperconnect for $1.73B, its biggest acquisition ever — TechCrunch
- Match’s 2022 Letter to Shareholders
- Introducing Swipe Night: An Original Adventure Built for The Swipe® Feature — Tinder
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Issie Lapowsky joins the show to talk about Nick Clegg’s new job at Meta, what it means for Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, and what to do about the term “Metamates.” Then Lizzy Lawrence explains what’s next at Peloton, both for the company itself and for the 2,800 people it recently laid off. Finally, Nick Statt explains why metaverse real estate is booming, and what it means for the future of digital spaces.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Issie Lapowsky on Twitter
- What Nick Clegg’s promotion means for Meta, Mark and Sheryl
- Meta employees are now its 'metamates'
- Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse will require computing tech no one knows how to build
- Lizzy Lawrence on Twitter
- Life after Peloton
- Nick Statt on Twitter
- The virtual real estate boom is turning the metaverse into the Wild West. And it has the true believers on edge.
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
After two years of pandemic-induced cancellations, postponements and overall chaos, the wedding industry is back. The Knot estimates that there will be 2.6 million weddings in the U.S alone in 2022, about half a million more than a typical year. As we’ve all gotten used to hybrid meetings and Zoom happy hours, has tech changed weddings forever, too?
Not really, said Esther Lee, a senior editor and wedding expert at The Knot. But tech is changing the way people plan their weddings in a big way, from vendor searches to wedding gifts to the all-important wedding hashtag.
Lee joined the Source Code podcast to talk about Zoom weddings, getting married in the metaverse, how Teslas became the hot getaway car, and much more.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- The Knot
- Esther Lee on Twitter
- Esther Lee on The Knot
- The Knot 2021 Real Weddings Study
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
It's Super Bowl weekend! And the Olympics! It's a big time for sports fans, and a big time for TV networks everywhere. There's more money in live sports than ever, but at the same time, the market is clearly starting to shift. That change starts with young fans, who would much rather watch and share highlights than sit through three hours of football and commercials.
Buzzer's Bo Han is trying to capitalize on that change, and help leagues and networks alike to adjust to the new reality. He joined the show to discuss how how younger fans interact with the teams and players they love, how gambling and fantasy are changing sports, and why the Super Bowl remains unstoppable even as the rest of the media changes around it.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Bo Han on Twitter
- Buzzer
- House of Highlights on Instagram
- Super Bowl audience peaks before halftime as viewer pool shrinks, ages – Sportico
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
You may know Maria Avgitidis as “Matchmaker Maria,” TikTok’s favorite reviewer of dating profiles. She’ll tell you which pictures need to be swapped out, why putting your Instagram handle in your profile is a red flag, and whether you’re sharing too much or too little before you get swiped.
Avgitidis is also the owner of Agape Match, a high-end matchmaking company in New York City. For more than a decade, she’s been working with clients to help them find love in an increasing digital, app-centric world. It’s harder than ever to just meet someone in a bar, she said — and not just when a pandemic makes bars impossible.
For our second episode in a monthlong series about how tech is changing dating, love, relationships, sex and what it means to be a human in a world filled with other humans, Avgitidis told us about what it takes to make a perfect dating profile, how she helps her clients get off dating apps and into the real world, why swapping Instagram handles is more of a second-date thing, and much more.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- @realmatchmakermaria on TikTok
- Agape Match
- Maria’s podcast, Ask a Matchmaker
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
First, a quick update on tech’s earnings. Then, Issie Lapowsky joins the show to discuss what Spotify can and should do about Joe Rogan, and why platforms keep having the same content issues. Next, Nick Statt explains why Sony bought Bungie, and what it says about the company’s vision for the future of gaming. Finally, Anna Kramer explains what’s happening with the union fight at Amazon warehouses, and the regulation that might be coming.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Issie Lapowsky on Twitter
- Spotify’s big Rogan mistake
- Blame cheap music for Joe Rogan being on Spotify
- Spotify CEO defends Joe Rogan deal in tense company town hall — The Verge
- Nick Statt on Twitter
- What Sony sees in Destiny developer Bungie
- Anna Kramer on Twitter
- The next Amazon union vote in Bessemer, Alabama, is set for early February
- Two Amazon warehouses in Staten Island are trying to unionize
- Amazon warehouses have notorious injury rates. States are finally doing something about it.
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Even during a pandemic-fueled period of lockdown and social distancing, dating apps have continued to boom. In part because they’re the only game in town; people can’t meet in bars or mingle at work functions, so they’re turning to apps as a way to find love. In fact, technology sits at the center of dating and relationships like never before. What does that mean a dating app should be?
That’s what Justin McLeod, the CEO of Hinge, spends his time thinking about. Hinge has been on a growth tear the last couple of years — McLeod said it’s the fastest-growing dating app on the market — as it tries to help users be more thoughtful, intentional and effective in finding someone to be with. Hinge’s thing has always been that it is “the dating app designed to be deleted,” which feels increasingly unusual in a market crowded with apps trying to steal your every waking second. (A disclaimer: Bennett Richardson, Protocol’s president, was in a former life a co-founder of Hinge.)
For the first episode in Source Code’s monthlong series about how tech is affecting love, dating, sex, relationships and everything else, McLeod joined the show to talk about the role of dating apps, what “dating” even means in an increasingly digital world, and what it means to build an app you hope people don’t really use.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Hinge
- Justin McLeod on LinkedIn
- Hinge's Chaotic Voice Prompts Are the Best Thing to Happen to Dating — Jezebel
- Hinge’s founder gets vulnerable about data, addiction, and ‘Modern Love’ — Fast Company
For all the links and stories, head to
Source Code’s homepage.
Ben Pimentel explains why crypto prices are falling, the regulation that has the industry nervous, and whether this is a blip on the radar or a true crypto winter. Then, Janko Roettgers helps us make sense of Netflix’s tough earnings report, and why the company is pushing hard into gaming. Finally, Kate Kaye updates us on the state of AI text generators, and the latest in GPT-3.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Ben Pimentel on Twitter
- Crypto winter is coming
- Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse on the SEC's XRP lawsuit
- Ripple makes a contrarian move in the face of the crypto meltdown
- Robinhood is bleeding. Jamie Dimon is spending.
- Here's the latest sign that Meta's crypto project Diem is falling apart
- Janko Roettgers on Twitter
- Google is developing a low-end Chromecast with Google TV
- Netflix looks to expand gaming with major IP deals, Fortnite-like updates
- Netflix’s stock rollercoaster, explained
- Kate Kaye on Twitter
- OpenAI’s new language AI improves on GPT-3, but still lies and stereotypes
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Who will you be in the metaverse? It’s both a surprisingly philosophical question and a potentially critical one for businesses everywhere, as they continue to design what virtual worlds look like and how we live inside of them.
Akash Nigam has been working on his answers for a while. As CEO of Genies, he’s worked with celebrities like Justin Bieber and Rihanna to create digital avatars they can use for album releases, commercial shoots and to generally be places they can’t physically go. Now, Genies is working on something much bigger: an open, decentralized avatar system that lets anyone build their own metaverse character, and then build a world around it.
Nigam joined the Source Code podcast to talk about how avatars should look and work, and why they’re such a powerful and important thing to get right. He also explained why he thinks digital accessorizing is going to take over the fashion industry, why he’s out on photo-realistic avatars, and why the long-term vision for Web3 is so much more exciting than the current state of things.
For more on the topics discussed in this episode:
- Akash Nigam on Twitter
- Genies
- Giving you ownership — Genies Blog
- Could they be any more famous? — The Ringer
Nick Statt joins the show to discuss Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and what it means for the tech and game industries. Then, Issie Lapowsky talks about a big week in antitrust reform, and whether real progress is being made in the U.S. Finally, Hirsh Chitkara explains why AT&T, Verizon, the FAA and airlines have been fighting for months about 5G coverage.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Nick Statt on Twitter
- Microsoft's big bet on the future of gaming
- Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition will reshape the game industry
- Activision Blizzard's workplace crisis instigated Microsoft sale
- What the Activision Blizzard deal means for game devs and platforms — Polygon
- Issie Lapowsky on Twitter
- The antitrust boom is coming
- Tim Cook, Ted Cruz and the strange politics of tech antitrust
- Hirsh Chitkara on Twitter
- The FAA that cried wolf on 5G
- Airlines ground 5G deployment for the third time
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Business is booming for 1Password. The company just announced it has raised $620 million, at a valuation of $6.8 billion, from a roster of A-list celebrities and well-known venture capitalists.
But what does a password manager need with $620 million? Jeff Shiner, 1Password’s CEO, has some plans. He’s building the team fast — 1Password has nearly tripled in size in the last two years, up to 500 employees, and plans to double again this year — while also expanding the vision of what a password manager can do. 1Password has long been a consumer-first product, but the biggest opportunity lies in bringing the company’s knowhow, its user experience, and its security chops into the business world. 1Password already has more than 100,000 business customers, and it plans to expand fast.
More broadly, Shiner said he wants to help companies and users alike rethink how security works. There’s really no other choice: Thanks to an increase in remote work, the overwhelming consumerization of business software, and a litany of new security problems around the industry, the days of “just log in to the VPN” are dying and not coming back. In its place, Shiner said he hopes 1Password can help usher in a better, and more secure, system.
Shiner joined the Source Code podcast to talk about 1Password’s new cash flow, its stance on everything from crypto wallets to Sign In With Google buttons, and how a password manager could take an increasingly central role in our online lives.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Jeff Shiner on Twitter
- 1Password
- 1Password’s study on burnout
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Nick Statt joins the show to discuss the rise of Wordle, the subsequent rise of the Wordle clones, and why it’s so easy to copy a game. Then Ben Pimentel chats about the fight over Web3, why Jack Dorsey and Marc Andreessen are at odds, and the killer app for the future of the web. Finally, Allison Levitsky explains some of the big new future-of-work trends, including the four-day workweek and dog-walker perks.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Nick Statt on Twitter
- There are scores of Wordle clones on iOS because of course there are
- The maker of Grand Theft Auto just bought Zynga in the biggest game deal in history
- Ben Pimentel on Twitter
- Jack Dorsey wants to help bitcoin developers fight legal battles
- The crypto-communists behind the Web3 revolution
- When Web3 looks more like Web 2.0
- OpenSea puts Web3’s decentralized nature to the test
- Allison Levitsky on Twitter
- Tech's big new ideas about work
- Dog walkers and housekeepers: What perks should you pay for when offices reopen?
- Is mastering your emotions the key to tech leadership?
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Nothing about the state of education feels “normal” right now. If you’re a parent, you’re trying to navigate hybrid learning, keeping up with medical advice, dealing with an onslaught of omicron, and trying to make sure your kids keep up through it all. And if you’re an adult, you’re looking for new ways to keep up in a world where every technology, every system, every tool and every job’s basic requirements seem to change all the time.
But in the midst of all that upheaval, there’s a real possibility of lasting change and improvement in education. “We know, broadly, that learning will become more available, it’ll be more online, and there’ll be a lot more people learning for a lot more of their lives,” said Coursera CEO Jeff Maggioncalda. Coursera is focused on adult learning rather than the K-12 set, but is still grappling with many of the same questions about the future of learning, and how to take digital education far beyond just a recording of a lecture hall.
Maggioncalda and Coursera Chief Content Officer Betty Vandenbosch joined the Source Code podcast to talk about the chaotic state of online education, what’s next for corporate training, how softer skills are becoming part of the work curriculum, how learning might work in the metaverse, and much more.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Jeff Maggioncalda on LinkedIn
- Betty Vandenbosch on LinkedIn
- Coursera
- The Science of Well-Being
- Big History — From the Big Bang until Today
- Inspired Leadership Specialization
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
For our last episode of 2021, Biz Carson joins the show to talk about the closing arguments in the Elizabeth Holmes trial, along with what we’ve learned about Theranos and the tech industry in general. Then, Ben Pimentel joins to discuss the CIA’s acknowledgement that it’s working on crypto projects — and why that got everyone talking about the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of bitcoin.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Biz Carson on Twitter
- Forget what you know about Theranos
- Elizabeth Holmes' lies were 'callous' and 'criminal,' the prosecution says
- How Theranos changed startup PR forever
- What investors can learn from the Theranos trial
- Ben Pimentel on Twitter
- The CIA has its eyes on crypto
- Crypto scammers stole almost $8 billion in 2021, up 81% from 2020
- Satoshi, is that you? A legal brawl fails to identify bitcoin’s creator.
- Crypto regulation's about to get messy. Gensler has a mop.
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Stewart Butterfield has a lot of thoughts about how work should work. Which is not exactly surprising, given that he’s the CEO of Slack, and now works for Salesforce, two companies that are at the center of the digital workplace for businesses around the world. He’s seen what the shift to remote-first work has done to many companies, and how digital transformation has changed business’ conception of what “work” even looks like. It all sounds a little philosophical — and maybe it is — but it’s also the stuff companies everywhere are grappling with right now.
But 2021 was hardly an ordinary year. The way we worked and lived will (hopefully!) not be the way we work and live forever. So what trends should we leave behind, and which should we embrace? And maybe just as important, which are going to stick around no matter how we feel? The future of work doesn’t have to look like the present, but it doesn’t have to look like the past either.
For our last Source Code interview of the year, we asked Butterfield to look back at 2021 and ahead to 2022, to try and figure out what the future of work might look like. Will asynchronous work become the norm? Will companies and employees gain a better work-life balance? Will all our meetings move to the metaverse? How should we set up notifications, build culture, and create inclusive companies when everyone’s a rectangle on a laptop screen? Butterfield has thoughts and ideas on all of it, and lessons for everyone heading into another, hopefully much less chaotic year.
For more on the topics discussed in this episode:
- Lizzy Lawrence on Twitter
- Cron calendar
- Stewart Butterfield on Twitter
- Slack’s Digital HQ explainer
- Slack’s Frontiers news
- Async vs. sync work: How to re-evaluate meetings
- WhatsApp for work: Slack is turning into a full-on messaging app
- Slack’s Platform plan: To be ‘the central nervous system’ of businesses everywhere
- Why Slack’s CEO says he's not worried about Microsoft
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Anna Kramer joins the show to talk about DoorDash’s new 15-minute delivery service, what it takes to move stuff around that fast, and why the industry is obsessed with speed. Then, Tomio Geron discusses the DAOs trying to buy an NBA team, the constitution, movie rights and more, and explains how far DAOs can really go.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Anna Kramer on Twitter
- Why is 15-minute delivery everywhere in NYC?
- DoorDash 15-minute delivery starts with employees
- Tomio Geron on Twitter
- Do DAOs work?
- DAOs are running crypto. Can they replace the corporation, too?
- This DAO wants to buy an NBA team. It’s a long shot.
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
For the first time, it looks like the smart home industry is on the path to being … smart. In large part, that’s because most of the companies in the space have decided to work together to support a standard called Matter that governs the way devices talk to each other, and would ensure that devices can interoperate and communicate no matter where they came from.
Tobin Richardson is the CEO of the Connectivity Standards Alliance, the organization responsible for creating, certifying and controlling Matter. His organization counts a huge number of consumer-tech companies as members, from Google and Apple and Amazon to Ikea and Comcast. Richardson’s job is to wrangle all these players, including some of the world’s largest and most powerful companies, toward a single vision for the future of the smart home. It’s not always easy.
Richardson joined the Source Code podcast to explain the history of the CSA and Matter, why all these companies finally decided to work together, and what it takes to keep a lot of opinionated engineers on task and on mission.
For more on the topics discussed in this episode:
- Tobin Richardson on Twitter
- The Connectivity Standards Alliance
- Matter
- The tech industry has finally picked a smart-home standard
- Matter on GitHub
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Issie Lapowsky joins the show to discuss Jack Dorsey’s sudden exit from Twitter, the waning cult of the founder, and what’s next for the social network. Then Ben Pimentel joins to chat about why Dorsey wanted to focus on Square, why Square is now called Block, and the company’s crypto-first future. Finally, Ben Brody chats about the confirmation hearings for Gigi Sohn and Alan Davidson, and what happens next in the Meta/Giphy antitrust saga.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Issie Lapowsky on Twitter
- Jack Dorsey has stepped down as Twitter CEO
- Jack Dorsey and breaking up the cult of the founder
- Meet Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s new CEO
- Salesforce promotes Bret Taylor to co-CEO
- CTO to CEO: The case for putting the tech expert in charge
- Ben Pimentel on Twitter
- Jack Dorsey’s Twitter resignation is really about bitcoin
- Square changes its name to Block after Dorsey leaves Twitter
- David Marcus, Meta's crypto boss, is leaving
- Ben Brody on Twitter
- 5 things to know about NTIA nominee Alan Davidson
- Biden FCC nominee Sohn is walking a tightrope with Republicans
- Facebook has to sell Giphy under an order from the UK
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Anyone who tells you they know what the future of work looks like is lying to you. For some people, post-pandemic work looks completely different than it once did, while others are already back in the office in roughly the same way as before. But there are big trends, even bigger than the pandemic, around remote work, flexibility, corporate values, and work-life balance, that are disrupting all facets of the workplace.
Hayden Brown, the CEO of freelancing platform Upwork, is definitely biased toward a freelance-first, gig-based version of the future of work. But she’s also had a front-row seat to a huge amount of change, after becoming CEO of the company only a few weeks before the pandemic hit. Since then, she’s had to help employers and workers alike navigate new ways of finding work and new ways of getting things done. And while she admits freelancing isn’t for everyone, she’s also confident that neither is a full-time job.
Brown joined the Source Code podcast to discuss Upwork’s recent rebrand and its efforts to describe and understand the future of work. She also talked about how a push for flexibility is changing workplaces everywhere, why the freelance economy is so appealing to so many people, and what companies can do to catch up.
For more on the topics discussed in this episode:
- Hayden Brown on Twitter
- Upwork’s “The Great Work Teardown” study
- An inside look at Upwork’s rebrand — Upwork
- How freelancing is changing work — The New York Times
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
The shipping industry is not short on new ideas about how to get things to people faster, cheaper and easier. Want a toothbrush and a burrito at your house in 15 minutes? That’s almost certainly doable. And it’s an increasingly competitive space.
Eric Wimer and Kristian Zak, the founders of Returnmates, are focused on the other end of the buying process: the returns. They’re trying to build a system that is just as efficient and convenient (and almost as fast) for sending back the stuff you don’t want after all. They’re partnering with some big brands in the process, which are betting that by making returns easier, they might actually be able to make customers more comfortable shopping online in the first place.
Wimer and Zak joined the Source Code podcast to talk about the returns industry, why businesses are finally coming around to making returns easy, and how to build an efficient system to get people’s unwanted clothes, gadgets, rugs and dollhouses back from whence they came.
For more on the topics discussed in this episode:
- Eric Wimer on LinkedIn
- Kristian Zak on LinkedIn
- Returnmates
- Eric Wimer: Why we launched Returnmates
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Anna Kramer joins the show to tell the story of ConstitutionDAO, and the crypto fans who tried to buy the U.S. Constitution. Then, Ben Brody explains what’s behind Apple’s new Self Service Repair Program, and whether this is really a huge win for the right-to-repair movement.
For more on the topics discussed in this episode:
- Anna Kramer on Twitter
- This crypto group plans to buy the Constitution
- A crypto group raised more than $40 million, but lost an auction
- Citadel CEO Ken Griffin outbid crypto group for Constitution
- Ben Brody on Twitter
- Apple will start selling tools to let users repair their own iPhones
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Tech is currently reckoning with its role in the real world, and what happens when our digital and physical lives collide. Jamie Siminoff, the founder and CEO of Ring, has been thinking about that for a decade. Ring has spent the last few years trying to figure out how to balance privacy and safety, what it takes to make people feel comfortable putting tech in their homes (or with the tech their neighbors may have installed), and what it means to be a good citizen. After some high-profile issues and a lot of scrutiny about its policies, Siminoff and Ring have spent the last couple of years rethinking all of their ideas.
Ring recently announced a number of new products, including the Alarm Pro security system that includes internet backup and a smart-home hub, and the Always Home Cam, a drone designed to fly around your house and keep an eye on things. Those products represent some of Ring’s most ambitious work yet, as it tries to both define and refine what home security means.
Siminoff joined the Source Code podcast to discuss Ring’s new products, how his thinking on security and privacy have evolved, why a drone might actually be less intrusive than your average security camera, and what it took for Ring to force all its users to turn on two-factor authentication. Oh, and why it’s so hard for a computer to tell the difference between a dog and an intruder.
For more on the topics discussed in this episode:
- Jamie Siminoff on Twitter
- Ring Always Home Cam, an Indoor Flying Camera
- Ring Alarm Pro
- We Tested Ring’s Security. It’s Awful — Vice
- At Ring’s R&D Team, Security Gaps and Rookie Engineers — The Information
- Ring’s Services Have Not Been Compromised – Here’s What You Need to Know — Ring
- How Public Safety Agencies Use Neighbors — Ring
- A Dad Is Suing Amazon's Ring Because He Says A Hacker Terrified His Kids — BuzzFeed
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Anna Kramer joins the show to discuss Elon Musk’s confusing sale of Tesla stock, what a fake resume says about the state of recruiting in tech, and how Apple’s new MacBook Pros have become the hot new software engineer perk. Then, Janko Roettgers breaks down the metaverse: what it is, when it’s coming, what it’ll look like, and the problems we should expect. Finally, Ben Brody explains why members of Congress love writing letters, and why it might be a more effective strategy than you think.
For more on the topics discussed in this episode:
- Anna Kramer on Twitter
- Elon Musk's wild Twitter weekend sent Tesla stock into a Monday tailspin
- Meet Angelina. She got job interviews at top tech companies. She’s also not real.
- The M1 Macs are the new software engineer status symbol
- Janko Roettgers on Twitter
- Everything you need to know about the metaverse
- The Metaverse: What It Is, Where to Find it, and Who Will Build It — Matthew Ball
- Ben Brody on Twitter
- ‘Sincerely, Elizabeth Warren’: How lawmakers use letters to get their way
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Nina Herold does not buy the idea that business travel isn’t coming back post-pandemic. Even with more employees working remotely, even with Zoom and async creeping toward the mainstream, plenty of people will still get on planes, trains and highways to get the job done.
That doesn’t mean business travel won’t change, though. Herold, the chief product and operations officer at TripActions, thinks it might change a lot. Rather than travel for sales calls, employees might travel to quarterly team all-hands offsites; rather than a few people traveling constantly, everyone might travel a little. Most of all, Herold said, TripActions has found that a pandemic spent at home has made everyone rethink how, why and when they travel. And that there’s a big market to be won in that transition.
Investors seem to agree: TripActions, which laid off nearly 300 people at the beginning of the pandemic, has since raised two huge funding rounds and is now valued at $7.25 billion, nearly doubling the company’s valuation from two years ago. Boosted by huge growth and that massive pile of cash, TripActions is now set on an equally big goal: building the super app for travel.
Herold joined the Source Code podcast to talk about how travel is changing; what a travel super app might look like; why booking travel and filing expenses is still such a painful process; and why the difference between Basic Economy, Main Cabin, Economy Plus, Economy Comfort and Main Cabin Extra is such a tricky one to help users solve.
For more on the topics discussed in this episode:
- Nina Herold on LinkedIn
- What it feels like to be laid off on Zoom during this crisis
- COVID-19 bruised TripActions’ business. It chose to innovate
- TripActions Secures $275M in Funding as it Creates a New Category of T&E
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Ben Pimentel joins the show to talk about two cryptocurrencies that kind of seemed like scams — shiba inu coin and squid coin — and why one failed while the other became a $37 billion industry. Then, Michelle Ma explains why “flexible” vacation policies are actually making employees take less time off, and what companies are doing to change that. Finally, Shen Lu digs into why Big Tech companies are leaving China, and what it means for the global tech industry.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Ben Pimentel on Twitter
- Is that hot meme coin a shiba inu or a squid?
- Michelle Ma on Twitter
- How LinkedIn and others keep remote work fair
- Companies with unlimited PTO are forcing their employees to take it
- Async vs. sync work: How to re-evaluate meetings
- Shen Lu on Twitter
- The Great China Exit
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
All Facebook, all the time! Issie Lapowsky joins the show to talk about what’s in the Facebook Papers, and what it’s like trying to report on them and understand how Facebook works. Then, Janko Roettgers discusses the company’s big rebranding — Facebook out, Meta in — and Mark Zuckerberg’s big-picture plans for the metaverse.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Issie Lapowsky on Twitter
- It’s Frances Haugen’s world. We’re all just living in it.
- Here are all the Facebook Papers stories
- They left Facebook’s integrity team. Now they want the world to know how it works.
- Facebook's hiring crisis: Engineers are turning down offers, internal docs show
- Robin Caplan on Twitter: Facebook as a radically hierarchical company
- Janko Roettgers on Twitter
- How Facebook is merging VR with the real world
- Mark Zuckerberg just announced the end of Facebook
- The Metaverse and How We'll Build It Together — Connect 2021
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Sebastian Thrun was one of the early pioneers of the self-driving car, and spent years working at Google and elsewhere to make autonomous vehicles a reality. Then he ditched the industry entirely and went for something even bigger: flying cars.
Except, wait, don’t call them flying cars. Thrun, now the CEO of Kitty Hawk, calls them “electric vertical takeoff and landing aircrafts,” or eVTOLs for short. (It’s not quite as catchy.) But whatever the name, Thrun is betting that they’ll be transformative. No more dealing with existing infrastructure and outdated systems, no more worrying about the human driver next to you. He imagines a fully autonomous, fully safe, much more environmentally friendly skyway system that doesn’t have to worry about terrestrial matters at all. And he’s convinced that’s all coming much faster than you might think.
Thrun joined the Source Code podcast to talk about the state of flying cars — sorry, eVTOLs — along with his vision for the future, what it’ll take to get there, why batteries are the bane of everyone’s existence, and whether he’s nervous to be the first human passenger inside Kitty Hawk’s latest vehicle, Heaviside.
For more on the topics discussed in this episode:
- Sebastian Thrun on Twitter
- Kitty Hawk
- More info on Heaviside
- Kitty Hawk’s New Flying Car Promises a (Near) Silent Flight – Wired
- What Is a Flying Car? — The New York Times
First, a brief update on the Facebook Files, as more stories start to come out. Then, Owen Thomas joins the show to discuss PayPal’s reported interest in acquiring Pinterest, and why that deal might actually make sense for both sides. Janko Roettgers then discusses the good, bad and complicated of Netflix’s last few weeks, before Lizzy Lawrence joins the show to talk about the world of productivity influencers.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- January 6 insurrection and Facebook: Internal docs paint a damning picture
- What Facebook knew about how it radicalized users
- Our Comprehensive Approach to Protecting the US 2020 Elections Through Inauguration Day
- Owen Thomas on Twitter
- Could PayPal and Pinterest build a shopping super app?
- Janko Roettgers on Twitter
- How Netflix wants to get the next ‘Squid Game’
- Lizzy Lawrence on Twitter
- Meet the productivity app influencers
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
The way Shishir Mehrotra sees it, digital documents haven’t really changed in 50 years. Since the days of WordStar, Harvard Graphics and VisiCalc, the basic idea of what makes up a document, presentation and spreadsheet haven’t really changed. Until now.
Now, thanks to companies like Coda — where Mehrotra is founder and CEO — along with Notion, Quip and others, that’s starting to change. These companies are building tools that can do multiple things in a single space, that are designed both for creating and for sharing, and that turn documents from “a piece of paper on a screen” into something much more powerful. And to hear Mehrotra tell it, documents are headed toward a future that looks more like an operating system than a Word file.
Mehrotra joined the Source Code podcast to talk about Coda’s recent announcements, the two-year project to rebuild its core technology, Coda’s future as a platform, and why he thinks documents can be much more than just documents going forward.
For more on the topics covered in this episode:
- Shishir Mehrotra on Twitter
- Coda
- Coda’s Gallery
- Coda’s next move: Building an app store for getting stuff done
- The Power of Reset: Arianna Huffington’s secret to de-stress and unite teams
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
A recording of a Protocol Live event, “Is there any innovation left in smartphones?” featuring Samsung’s Drew Blackard, The Cyrcle Phone’s Christina Cyr, and Purism’s Nicole Faerber. We talk about sustainability, cameras, batteries, right-to-repair, foldable screens, and much more.
To see the video of this event, or register for upcoming Protocol Lives, check out our events page.
Molly Mackinlay loves the music app Audius, a decentralized tool that is trying to rethink the way artists own their music and interact with fans. She’s a big believer in NFTs, and is looking forward to a world where everything from houses to cars are sold and tracked through the tokens. And she’s definitely excited about the metaverse, as long as it’s “crazy and open and enables all sorts of creation, which doesn’t come from one single company running the metaverse.”
In her day job at Protocol Labs (no relation), Mackinlay spends her time building the infrastructure that will enable all of that. She oversees IPFS, the underlying protocol that could be the future of how data moves between devices, networks and even planets. It’s a job that requires wrangling thousands of developers and projects, prioritizing many different ideas about how the future of the internet should work, and trying to convince everyone to jump on board with the decentralization movement.
Mackinlay joined the Source Code podcast to discuss her vision for the future of the internet, what it takes to build an internet that never breaks or crashes, and the opportunities web3 holds for companies new and old, big and small.
For more on the topics discussed in this episode:
- Molly Mackinlay on Twitter
- Protocol Labs
- How IPFS works
- Audius
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Issie Lapowsky and Ben Brody join the show to talk about the latest in a string of rough weeks for Facebook, including Frances Haugen’s Congressional testimony and Facebook’s surprisingly aggressive pushback.
For more on the topics discussed in this episode:
- Ben Brody on Twitter
- Issie Lapowsky on Twitter
- Eight takeaways from Haugen’s testimony on Facebook
- ‘Beyond the pale’: Former Facebook staffers react to the company’s Haugen spin
- Developer says Facebook banned him over his 'Unfollow Everything' tool
- Zuckerberg says coverage of Facebook painted a 'false picture'
- Facebook went down: what happened and what happens next
- What you can learn from Facebook's outage
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
PCs are back. After years of what looked like a slow decline into nothingness, the pandemic — and the remote work, school and life it created — turned laptops and desktops into must-have devices. From MacBooks to Chromebooks, virtually everything in the PC category has seen huge growth during the pandemic even with a chip shortage making it hard for companies to keep up. Even computer monitors have never sold so fast.
Panos Panay has seen the spike more closely than most. As chief product officer at Microsoft, Panay oversees both the teams that make Microsoft’s Surface hardware and the teams that make Windows. For the last 18 months or so, Panay and his teams have been dogfooding those products like never before: “We design these products on these products,” he said, “which is very interesting.” For months, Panay has been going to his office on Microsoft’s Redmond campus only occasionally, to work in the hardware lab or do the occasional team catch-up. But for the most part, like everyone else, he’s been on video calls and in group chats all day like everyone else.
Suffice to say, that has changed how Panay thinks about Microsoft’s products, and how his teams built the latest versions. The plans for what would become Windows 11, which launched to the public on Monday, and for new products like the Surface Pro 8 and the Surface Laptop Studio had begun long before the pandemic started. But they changed, because the world changed. And Panay doesn’t think it’s going back. The big(ger) screen is here to stay.
For more on the topics discussed in this episode:
- Panos Panay on Twitter
- The 2021 Microsoft Windows event
- A good Windows 11 review
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Ben Brody and Issie Lapowsky join to talk about the most recent revelations from the Wall Street Journal’s Facebook Files investigation, plus what we learned — or didn’t learn — from the most recent Congressional hearing with Facebook executives. Then, Nick Statt joins to talk about EA’s huge investment in a mobile future for the gaming industry, and how Epic sees the metaverse evolving.
For more on the topics discussed in this episode:
- Issie Lapowsky on Twitter
- Ben Brody on Twitter
- How Congress's parade of tech hearings totally lost the plot
- A Facebook whistleblower will testify before the Senate next week
- The many faces of Facebook
- Nick Statt on Twitter
- How EA got into mobile — and figured out the future of gaming
- Epic Games believes the Internet is broken. This is their blueprint to fix it.
- Protocol’s tech calendar
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
For years, most productivity tools were the domain of power users and productivity whizzes, people willing to do the work to get more work done. (Or, in many cases, noodle endlessly in their to-do list app without ever actually accomplishing anything.) But over the past 18 months, those tools have become crucial to the work lives of people around the industry and the world. Colleagues can’t hash things out at lunch or around a computer, and bosses can’t check in on a project by walking down the hall. Everything had to be digital.
That transition forced people like Michael Pryor, the head of Trello at Atlassian, to rethink their tools. With new kinds of users coming into the system, Pryor said he and his team fundamentally re-imagined Trello’s place in the world — and built a framework for a new kind of productivity in a new era of work.
Pryor joined the Source Code podcast to talk about the new Trello, but also why work tools need to be more flexible, why too many collaboration apps fail, and why the future of work might involve VR headsets. Eventually.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Michael Pryor on Twitter
- Trello is getting out of to-do lists and into fixing the future of work
- Trello’s productivity blog
- Workona
- Everything you need to know about Kanban in Gmail
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Ben Pimentel joins the show to discuss China’s aggressive moves against the crypto industry, Robinhood and Coinbase’s battle for crypto supremacy, and PayPal’s new financial super app. Then Tomio Geron explains what’s going on at Binance, and why the largest crypto exchange in the world is under so much regulatory scrutiny.
For more on the topics discussed in this episode:
- Ben Pimentel on Twitter
- China's crypto crackdown: will crypto recover?
- Robinhood’s crypto wallet is smart, risky — and inevitable
- PayPal's super app is here
- Tomio Geron on Twitter
- Here's everything going wrong at Binance, the world's biggest crypto exchange
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Issie Lapowsky, Ben Brody and Nick Statt join the show to discuss The Wall Street Journal’s five-part series of stories known as The Facebook Files. What have we learned about Facebook? How will Facebook respond? What should lawmakers make of it? What happens next?
Issie is ilapowsky@protocol.com, Ben is bbrody@protocol.com, Nick is nstatt@protocol.com, and David is dpierce@protocol.com.
For more on the topics discussed in this episode:
- The Facebook Files
- Issie Lapowsky on Twitter
- Ben Brody on Twitter
- Nick Statt on Twitter
- Facebook: What the Wall Street Journal got wrong
- Why Washington can’t just fix Facebook
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Bringing you another Protocol virtual event, hosted by Protocol's Alison Levitsky, diving into what it means to build a company and culture that's optimized for a hybrid future.
Nirav Patel spent a long time building cutting-edge hardware, both at Apple and at Oculus. But when he founded his own company, Framework, he picked a decidedly more mature (and maybe less exciting) product to focus on: PCs.
The Framework Laptop, the company’s first product, is a $999, 13.5-inch clamshell that looks and feels a lot like, well, every other laptop on the market. Except for the fact that you can take it apart, practically piece by piece, and repair or upgrade nearly everything inside. From the processor to the keyboard to the memory to the battery, Framework’s laptop is a vision for a future that gives users more control over their gadgets, and gives longer life to the gadgets themselves.
Patel joined the Source Code Podcast to discuss the journey of making the Framework Laptop, how the industry is changing thanks to right-to-repair laws and a societal turn toward conservation, the challenges faced by Framework and other companies making modular and upgradeable devices, and why the tech industry should be watching what’s happening in France.
For more on the topics discussed in this episode:
- Framework
- Nirav Patel on Twitter
- iFixit’s Framework Laptop teardown
- In Defense of Dumb TVs
- The quest for sustainable consumer electronics: Rethinking products and business models
- The quest for sustainable consumer electronics: It’s not easy being green
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
It's Apple Day! Apple's September event is always its biggest and splashiest, so we grabbed Protocol's Nick Statt to talk about some of the biggest announcements, biggest surprises, and hottest takes on the future of Apple.
For more on the topics discussed in this episode:
- Nick Statt on Twitter
- All of Apple's announcements
- Webcams and battery life: What mattered at Apple's latest event
Ben Brody and Nick Statt join the show to talk about the ruling in Epic v. Apple, and what it means for the future of the app market. Then Janko Roettgers discusses the new Ray-Ban Stories, and what we should make of Facebook’s entry into the smart glasses world. Finally, Biz Carson talks about the first day of the Elizabeth Holmes trial, and what’s going to happen over the next 13 weeks.
For more on the topics discussed in this episode:
- Nick Statt on Twitter
- Ben Brody on Twitter
- Epic v. Apple ruling blocks Apple from banning links to alternative payments
- Janko Roettgers on Twitter
- Facebook’s Ray-Ban glasses are a big deal for AR
- How Facebook prepared for the next ‘glasshole’ backlash
- Biz Carson on Twitter
- Elizabeth Holmes goes on trial for Theranos fraud
- Fraud or mistakes? Opening trial arguments debate how much Elizabeth Holmes knew.
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
In 2017, David Marcus wrote Mark Zuckerberg an email saying he thought Facebook should get involved in cryptocurrency. (He was on vacation at the time.) After a stint running PayPal and another as the head of Facebook Messenger, he thought that fixing payment infrastructure was the next big project he wanted to work on.
Zuckerberg liked the idea, which eventually became Libra, a cryptocurrency that Facebook announced in 2019 alongside a group of partners that would help it develop and govern Libra. Marcus and his new team, a group called Facebook Financial (F2 for short), was also set to work on a wallet called Calibra. The announcement went over like a lead balloon: Congressman Brad Sherman compared “Zuck Bucks” to 9/11, a number of members of the Libra Association quickly bailed on the project, and it seemed doomed before even launch. But Marcus and his team kept working.
Now, Libra is Diem and Calibra is Novi, and Marcus said both are nearly ready for public consumption. He joined the Source Code podcast to talk about how he has approached the cryptocurrency space, what it’ll take to get users to trust Facebook with their money, the merits of bitcoin and stablecoins, why NFTs are the start of something big, and much more.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- David Marcus on Twitter
- The original Libra launch post
- Welcome to Novi
- Good stablecoins, a protocol for money, and digital wallets: the formula to fix our broken payment system
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Zapier became a $5 billion company by finding ways to improve and integrate the rest of the trillion-dollar software industry. The service works with a plenitude of apps from Salesforce to Teams to Gmail to Zendesk to Stripe to Webflow to Quickbooks and hundreds of others, building bridges between them to make it easier to move data and automate workflows.
In the process, Zapier has also become one of the standard bearers of the low-code/no-code movement, one of a teeming new industry of companies offering tools to build apps and workflows without needing so much as a tag. “I think there was a huge amount of power in tools like Zapier,” CEO Wade Foster said, “taking things only a single digit percentage of people could do, and giving that leverage to regular business users.”
Foster joined the Source Code podcast to talk about Zapier’s rise, the shift toward integration and unification taking over the SaaS world, what he likes and dislikes about the low-code/no-code industry, and what AI and voice assistants might mean for the future of software. He also offers a few wild tips on how to make the most of Zapier.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Wade Foster on Twitter
- Zapier’s Explore page
- Low-Code/No-Code Tools Are Everywhere. Can They Really Deliver?
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Anna Kramer joins the show to discuss a wild week for OnlyFans, where the platform goes from here, and whether creators will ever trust the company again. Then Ben Brody discusses Apple’s new policies for app developers, why anti-steering matters, and whether Apple’s teeny tiny olive branch will make legislators and litigators go easier on the company.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Anna Kramer on Twitter
- OnlyFans has reversed its decision to ban porn
- The Great OnlyFans exodus
- As OnlyFans abandons sex workers, here’s who is filling the void
- The Bella Thorne Effect: How Celebrity Killed the OnlyFans Star
- Ben Brody on Twitter
- Apple will let developers email users about payments outside iOS
- What Apple’s App Store settlement means for the Epic Fortnite lawsuit
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Girish Mathrubootham is in pay-it-forward mode. After starting Freshworks in Chennai, India, and growing the customer communication startup into a multibillion dollar company, Mathrubootham wants to take the lessons he learned along the way and help a new generation of Indian entrepreneurs do even more, even faster.
India is one of the fastest-growing markets for the tech industry, with hundreds of millions of people coming online and a much more open, global stance than countries like China have adopted toward tech. That’s why Google, Amazon and practically every other tech giant is scrambling to establish a foothold in the country. Mathrubootham said that’s a good thing, but he’s focused on helping the founders already in India to build companies to rival those giants both in the country and around the world.
Mathrubootham joined the Source Code podcast to talk about his experiences as a CEO and an investor, the state of the Indian startup market (particularly for SaaS companies), what his new Together Fund is looking for in Indian companies, and what it means to build “a Silicon Valley” in a city like Chennai.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Girish Mathrubootham on LinkedIn
- Together Fund
- Shaping the SaaS landscape: a US$1 trillion opportunity for India’s startups
- Big Tech Thought It Had A Billion Users In The Bag. Now It Might Be Forced To Make Hard Choices To Get Them.
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Hirsh Chitkara joins the show to talk about Tesla's AI day, and the looming clash between the electric car company and regulators. Then Issie Lapowsky digs into Facebook's newly released data on the platform's most popular content, and tries to figure out what it all means. Finally, Janko Roettgers discusses his series on the race to make gadgets more sustainably, and why it's both hard to do and incredibly important to get right.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Hirsh Chitkara on Twitter
- The Wild West days of self-driving are ending. Nobody told Tesla.
- Tesla is building a robot, and it's called the Tesla Bot
- Issie Lapowsky on Twitter
- Facebook is sharing data to prove it’s not a political hellhole
- Janko Roettgers on Twitter
- The quest for sustainable consumer electronics: It’s not easy being green
- The quest for sustainable consumer electronics: Rethinking products and business models
- Facebook is building a meeting app for the metaverse
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
A remote, digital-first future of work would appear to be extremely bad news for a company like Envoy. CEO Larry Gadea and his team have spent a number of years building tools for physical offices, after all, including the visitor-check-in system it’s best known for. (If you’ve ever been in a startup office, you know the one: It’s the iPad in the lobby that makes you sign an NDA and then take a picture at that horrible under-chin angle.)
But Gadea said that while the pandemic created some tough times for Envoy — including forcing Gadea to lay off a big chunk of his employees — it has also helped accelerate the company toward some of its bigger, more ambitious plans. Gadea thinks the industry is headed for a rethinking of what an “office” actually does, with more intelligent tools to make sure every employee has the experience they need when they come in. And in a world where five days a week, 9-5 is no longer the normal setup, those tools seem to Gadea to matter more than ever.
Gadea joined the Source Code podcast to talk about how Envoy has changed over the last 18 months, how he sees physical spaces becoming more intelligent and collaborative, and why there are some serious parallels between the office of your future and the school halls of your past.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Larry Gadea on Twitter
- Return to Workplace Index: COVID-19 Foot Traffic Trends
- Rethinking the on-site experience? It’s time to say goodbye to the “office”
- Protocol’s tech employee survey
A bonus episode! We recently held a virtual event on all things meetings. How to know when to have them (and when not to), how to prepare for them more effectively, how to have them more productively, how to share information when they're done, and much more. We thought you might enjoy it, so we're sharing it here too.
For more on the event and our guests, click here.
First, a quick look at Samsung’s new foldable phones, and what it’ll take to make anyone care about foldable phones. Then Ben Brody joins to talk about the new bill in the Senate that would change the way Apple and Google’s app stores work. Finally, Allison Levitsky catches us up on tech’s return to offices, new vaccine mandate policies, and the increasingly flexible future of work.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Samsung’s big bet on a foldable future
- Ben Brody on Twitter
- A new Senate bill would overhaul Google and Apple’s app stores
- Allison Levitsky on Twitter
- Vaccine mandates aren’t enough. Big Tech wants employees to prove it.
- Tech company hybrid work policies are becoming more flexible, not less
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
DuckDuckGo has been on a tear the last couple of years. In mid-2018, the company’s data showed it was getting about 18 million searches a day; now that number’s pushing 100 million. Both numbers still look like rounding errors next to Google’s gargantuan scale, but DuckDuckGo has cemented itself as one of the most important players in search.
But Gabriel Weinberg, DuckDuckGo’s founder and CEO, doesn’t see search as the endgame for the company. DDG is a privacy company, set out on building what he calls “an easy button for privacy.” Weinberg’s is a slightly unusual vision for privacy on the internet: He wants to let people use the apps they want, the way they want, without being tracked or having their personal data collected and used against them. And it should all happen in the background. Privacy, he said, should be “really making one choice: the choice that you want privacy, you don't want to be coerced.”
Weinberg joined the Source Code podcast to discuss what we talk about when we talk about privacy, how a company like DuckDuckGo can compete in a world dominated by the data-gatherers, whether products can be both private and best of breed, and how he feels about the company’s name as it goes more mainstream.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Gabriel Weinberg on Twitter
- DuckDuckGo
- DuckDuckGo Email Protection
- The latest on Google’s search engine choice screen
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Nick Statt joins the show to talk about all the craziness in the gaming world, from the rise in subscription gaming to the scandal unfolding at Activision Blizzard. Then, Issie Lapowsky joins to discuss the 2,700-page infrastructure bill, and what’s in it for the tech industry.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Nick Statt on Twitter
- The game industry comes back down to Earth after its pandemic boom
- The game industry’s Netflix and Spotify moment
- Issie Lapowsky on Twitter
- From Comcast to crypto: Here’s who wins and loses in the Senate infrastructure bill
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Twitter recently released one of its algorithms into the world — the one that controls how images are cropped in the Twitter app — and said it would pay people to find all the ways it was broken. Rumman Chowdhury and Jutta Williams, two executives on Twitter’s META team, called it an “algorithmic bias bounty challenge,” and said they hoped it would set a precedent for “proactive and collective identification of algorithmic harms.”
The META team’s job is to help Twitter (and the rest of the industry) make sure its artificial intelligence and machine-learning products are as ethically and responsibly used as they can be. What does that mean or look like in practice? Well, Twitter (and the rest of the industry) is still figuring that out. And this work, at Google and elsewhere, has led to huge internal turmoil as companies have begun to reckon more honestly with the ramifications of their own work.
Chowdhury and Williams joined the Source Code podcast to talk about how the META team works, what they hope the bias bounty challenge will accomplish, and the challenges of doing qualitative research in a quantitative industry. That, and what “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” can teach us about AI.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Rumman Chowdhury on Twitter
- Jutta Williams on Twitter
- How Twitter hired tech's biggest critics to build ethical AI
- Twitter will pay you to find bias in its AI
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
First, a few takeaways from another blockbuster quarter in the tech industry. Then, Janko Roettgers joins the show to discuss Big Tech’s obsession with the metaverse and the platform war that seems inevitable. Finally, Ben Pimentel talks about Robinhood’s IPO, and the company’s crazy route to the public markets.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Janko Roettgers on Twitter
- Facebook announces Metaverse product group headed by Instagram VP Vishal Shah
- Zuckerberg to investors: This metaverse thing will be expensive
- Ben Pimentel on Twitter
- Robinhood shares slide below offering price in debut
- Robinhood’s broken IPO echoes Facebook
- Robinhood meme-stocks itself
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Nick Statt joins the show to discuss a big week in gaming news, including Valve's new Steam Deck console and Netflix's push into making video games. Then, Issie Lapowsky takes us inside the World Wide Web Consortium, where there's a high-stakes privacy battle being waged over the future of privacy and the internet. Finally, Biz Carson talks about SoftBank, Tiger Global, and a massive shakeup happening inside the VC industry.
(Programming note: We're off next week, back the week following.)
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Nick Statt on Twitter
- Valve announces handheld Steam Deck console for playing PC games
- Why Netflix is getting serious about video games
- Issie Lapowsky on Twitter
- Concern trolls and power grabs: Inside Big Tech’s angry, geeky, often petty war for your privacy
- Biz Carson on Twitter
- Tiger Global vs. SoftBank: Inside the investing playbooks that upended Silicon Valley
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
You’re probably listening to this on a smartphone. That smartphone probably cost hundreds of dollars, if not well over a thousand. (Looking at you, iPhone Pro Max owners.) For billions of people around the world, those devices are simply not affordable.
Feature phones are alive and well, and KaiOS CEO Sebastien Codeville knows the landscape as well as anyone. KaiOS was created in 2015 out of Mozilla’s failed Firefox OS project, and has become a hugely popular operating system on super-cheap phones. KaiOS devices cost as little as $17; they typically have smaller screens and lots of physical buttons; they prize durability and days-long battery life over fancy features. And yet the people who use them, use them in entirely familiar ways. They text, they watch videos, they pay for stuff. For people all over the world, KaiOS-powered “smart feature phones” are a first introduction to the internet, and in many cases their users’ primary screen experience.
Codeville joined the Source Code podcast to discuss KaiOS, the challenges of building an app store and hardware for cheap devices, and why smartphones won’t kill feature phones anytime soon. Or maybe ever.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Sebastien Codeville on Twitter
- KaiOS
- 2020's most popular KaiOS apps
- How Reliance Jio became the world’s fastest-growing mobile network
- How KaiOS claimed the third-place mobile crown
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Ben Brody joins the show to discuss President Biden’s long, sprawling executive order on competition, and all the topics from net neutrality to right-to-repair that matter to the tech industry. Then Anna Kramer discusses Richard Branson’s impending flight to space, how regular people train to become astronauts, and how long it’ll take before we can get on a rocket the same way we get on a plane.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Ben Brody on Twitter
- A new Biden order will crack down on tech mergers, data gathering and ISPs
- The 8 ways Biden’s competition order could shake up Big Tech
- Anna Kramer on Twitter
- So you want to be a space tourist
- Coming Tuesday: How to Build a Smart City
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Dropbox was one of the first companies to go all-in on remote work. In October 2020, even as the Covid-19 pandemic continued to rage with no end in sight, CEO Drew Houston declared that “virtual first” was the future of Dropbox. Melanie Collins, the company’s chief people officer, has been a leading force in figuring out what that actually means in practice.
Melanie joined the show to discuss Dropbox’s way of thinking about remote work, how it’s redesigning offices, how to measure employees when you can’t see their butts in seats, and much more.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Melanie Collins on LinkedIn
- Drew Houston’s original Virtual First blog post
- Dropbox’s Virtual First toolkit
- Chief People Officer Melanie Collins shares her experiences with building the future of work
What does the workday of the future look like? When does it start? Where do you go? What tools do you use? How do bosses measure success? Do we know ... anything yet?
That's what we discussed in a recent live event, called Redesigning the 9-5. We were joined by Danielle Brown, the chief people officer at Gusto; Javier Soltero, the VP of Workspace at Google; and Jen Grant, the CEO of Appify. It was a great, practical conversation, and we thought you might enjoy it as well.
Sridhar Ramaswamy worked at Google for 15 years. By the end of his time at the company, he ran a team of thousands that helped make Google make billions. How? By selling ads.
Now, Ramaswamy is out to do something different. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Neeva, a new search engine that has no ads, aims to preserve user privacy, and relies on a subscription business to make it all work. Ramaswamy is convinced that’s the right way to build the search engine the world needs now, and to build a company that can do right by users, investors, and the internet all at the same time.
Ramaswamy joined the show to talk about the job a search engine does, how things change when you get rid of ads, and why he’s not worried that Google’s going to crush him.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Neeva
- Sridhar Ramaswamy on Twitter
- One company's plan to build a search engine Google can't beat
- The Android Choice Screen
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
First, we do a quick run through what’s new in Windows 11, and what it means for the tech industry as a whole. Then Ben Brody explains the fate of the five — sorry, six now — antitrust bills currently being debated in the House. Finally, Anna Kramer talks about the challenges of building an ethical AI team, and how Twitter seems to have gotten it right.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Windows 11’s biggest change: Microsoft is reinventing the app store
- Ben Brody on Twitter
- Sweeping tech antitrust bills advance, but opposition is louder too
- Anna Kramer on Twitter
- How Twitter hired tech's biggest critics to build ethical AI
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
A lot of CEOs have spent the last 15 months getting used to remote work. Amir Salihefendic, the CEO of Doist, is not one of those people. He’s been running a company across many time zones, in many countries, for years. And he’s learned a thing or two about what it takes to do it right — and why getting it right is as much about embracing asynchronous work than it is just sending everybody home.
Salihefendic joined the show to discuss how async should work, how Doist built a messaging app that feels very different from Slack, why companies should swap meetings for documents and offices for retreats, and much more.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Amir Salihefendic on Twitter
- Doist
- Asynchronous Communication: The Real Reason Remote Workers Are More Productive
- The Art of Async: The Remote Guide to Team Communication
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
After more than two decades at the FBI, Gurvais Grigg was looking for something to do post-retirement. So he picked … cryptocurrency and financial crimes. Grigg is now the global public sector CTO at Chainalysis, where he spends his time working with companies and governments on financial investigations involving cryptocurrency and the blockchain. He joined the Source Code podcast to explain the rise in ransomware, how the industry works (and its eerie parallels to the rest of the tech industry), and what governments and companies should be doing to protect themselves.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Gurvais Grigg on LinkedIn
- Chainalysis
- Grigg’s blog post on why he joined Chainalysis
- Chainalysis’ report on the state of ransomware in 2021
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Nick Statt joins the show to talk about Microsoft’s big investment in cloud gaming, and what it could mean for the rest of the tech industry. Then he talks about the most interesting things from WWDC, and what to watch for at E3. Finally, Anna Kramer joins the show to talk about how tech companies are planning to return to the office, and why their plans are generating so much backlash.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Nick Statt on Twitter
- Microsoft is building its own streaming devices as part of a major Xbox Game Pass expansion
- Apple Defends The Walled Garden
- Anna Kramer on Twitter
- Most Facebook employees can work remotely forever
- Amazon opts for three-day hybrid work plan
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Big Tech is coming for your kitchen. In recent years companies like Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods and Plenty have raised huge sums of money and have been attempting to find a cheaper, more efficient, more sustainable way to feed the world. Some of it involves creative new uses of plants, and some involves creating wholly new building blocks in a lab.
Larissa Zimberoff has been chronicling this space for years, most recently in her book, “Technically Food: Inside Silicon Valley’s Mission to Change What We Eat.” She’s eaten all the strange proteins, been in the labs, and seen firsthand what it takes to rethink the way the world eats. Spoiler alert: It’s not going to be easy.
Zimberoff joined the Source Code podcast to discuss how tech and food became intertwined in the first place, why so much of the future is actually about cows, which companies are most promising, and which futuristic foods might find a way into your fridge before long.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Larissa Zimberoff on Twitter
- “Technically Food: Inside Silicon Valley’s Mission to Change What We Eat”
- The Technically Food newsletter
- Inside Silicon Valley’s Mayo Marketing Madness
Protocol’s Ben Brody joins the show to discuss Facebook’s latest (and surely not last) decision on what to do with Donald Trump. Then Issie Lapowsky explains the Supreme Court’s decision in Van Buren v. United States and what it means for tech. Finally, Zeyi Yang introduces us to the cutest EV in China, and unpacks the state of the industry.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Ben Brody on Twitter
- Facebook will suspend Trump for at least two years
- Issie Lapowsky on Twitter
- SCOTUS limits core anti-hacking law in Van Buren decision
- Zeyi Yang on Twitter
- Meet China's tiny, adorable Tesla-slayer
- Every Chinese tech company wants to make EVs
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
If you’ve ever been into one of Amazon’s Go stores, you know the strange and somewhat magical feeling of checkout-free shopping. Walk in, grab your stuff, walk out. A receipt shows up on your phone a few minutes later. End of interaction. For Amazon, Go offers a chance to bring some of the convenience of online shopping into the real world. It also gives Amazon more insight into how people shop, what they look for, and how stores themselves work. That data can be invaluable.
Standard Cognition is one of Amazon’s leading competitors in this space, a company offering similar technology and features to existing stores all over the world. It already operates inside a network of convenience stores, and CEO Jordan Fisher said self-checkout is only the beginning. The company’s underlying tech, which it calls The Platform, could someday bring powerful computer vision to nearly any physical space. Fisher and his team are trying to figure out how to make it work, how to reckon with the privacy implications, and how to make checkout-free shopping even easier going forward.
Fisher joined the Source Code podcast to talk about what Standard is working on, what it’s like to compete with Amazon, how physical and online retail are merging into a single shopping experience, how Instacart and Uber Eats are changing stores, how computer vision systems can be both pervasive and privacy-preserving, and much more.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Standard Cognition
- Jordan Fisher on LinkedIn
- How The Standard Store works
- Checkout-free tech is coming sooner than you think
- Standard Cognition hits $1B valuation with $150M investment
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Protocol's Ben Brody, Karyne Levy and Nick Statt join the show to talk about the end of Epic v. Apple, why the rest of the industry (and world) is watching this case, and how Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers might rule.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Ben Brody on Twitter
- Karyne Levy on Twitter
- Nick Statt on Twitter
- All of Protocol’s Epic v. Apple coverage
- Apple and Epic lay it all on the table in final day of Fortnite trial
- Epic v. Apple verdict will set the stage for future antitrust battles
- Apple's Craig Federighi throws Mac security under the bus
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Tomio Geron joins the show to discuss a wild week in the crypto world, and what the U.S. government is trying to do to calm things down. Then, Megan Rose Dickey explains what we’ve learned from a recent set of tech company diversity reports, and where the industry still has the most work to do. Finally, Nick Statt catches us up on another week of Epic v. Apple, and tells us what happens after the trial wraps up this week.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Tomio Geron on Twitter
- Crypto is crashing. Is this a dip or the end?
- Washington is rushing to regulate crypto. It’s a mess.
- How Blockchain Can Fix One Of Wall Street's Thorniest Problems
- Megan Rose Dickey on Twitter
- A year after blockbuster accusations and lawsuits, Pinterest says it's 'committed to doing better'
- Did Coinbase screw up? Survey says workers want to talk about race.
- Banning politics at work? Not at Asana, says DEI chief.
- Salesforce's diversity report shows progress
- Nick Statt on Twitter
- Apple's Craig Federighi throws Mac security under the bus
- Not even Phil Schiller knows the App Store's profitability, and that's great news for Apple
- Apple says Fortnite commissions totaled more than $100 million, but the real number is likely higher
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Struum co-founders Lauren Devillier and Paul Pastor both have long histories in Hollywood. But now they’re starting a tech company, trying to aggregate niche streaming services and turn them into a giant that can take on Netflix and Disney. That requires new interfaces, new business models, and new ideas about content. They joined the show to discuss all that and more.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Struum
- TechCrunch's coverage of Struum's initial launch
- Lauren Devillier on LinkedIn
- Paul Pastor on LinkedIn
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens joins the show to discuss the FTC’s recent report on the repair industry in the U.S., why it’s such good news for the right-to-repair movement, and where things go from here.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Kyle Wiens on Twitter
- Nixing the Fix: An FTC Report to Congress on Repair Restrictions
- The right-to-repair movement has even bigger plans for 2021
- Tractors won't be fully autonomous anytime soon — but not because they can't be
- FTC finds 'scant' reason for repair limits in right-to-repair report
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Protocol’s Issie Lapowsky joins to talk about the Facebook Oversight Board’s decision (or lack thereof) on what to do with Donald Trump, and then plays us part of her discussion with board director Thomas Hughes. Then, Nick Statt joins the show to talk about what happened in the first week of Epic v. Apple.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Issie Lapowsky on Twitter
- Facebook’s Oversight Board upholds Trump ban — but for how long?
- Inside the Facebook Oversight Board’s Trump decision
- Nick Statt on Twitter
- Protocol’s coverage of Epic v. Apple
- App Store chief argues the virtues of Apple's walled garden
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Stan Chudnovsky, the VP of Messenger at Facebook, is in charge of the company’s plans for the future of communication. Those plans are big and getting bigger. Chudnovsky joins the show to discuss Messenger as an app, Messenger as a protocol, how privacy figures into the future of messaging, his theories on super apps like WeChat, and how the pandemic changed the course of digital communication forever.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Stan Chudnovsky on Facebook
- Mark Zuckerberg’s 2019 post on “A Privacy-Focused Vision for Social Networking”
- How Messenger-Instagram cross-app chat works
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Anna Kramer joins the show to discuss Basecamp’s big shift in company culture, and the huge backlash that followed. Then, Ben Brody and Nick Statt discuss why Epic v. Apple matters, and how it could affect the rest of the tech industry.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Anna Kramer on Twitter
- The original post about changes at Basecamp
- Politics at work? Basecamp's founders say no. Its workers say yes.
- Basecamp has lost about 34% of its workforce
- Ben Brody on Twitter
- Nick Statt on Twitter
- Epic v. Apple: Everything you need to know about the biggest trial in tech
- All of Protocol’s trial coverage
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Recidiviz, a technical nonprofit that provides open source data tracking and management software for state prison, probation and payrolls systems, became astoundingly important in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic ravaging the prison system.
Protocol's Anna Kramer sat down with Clementine Jacoby, the company’s co-founder and CEO, to talk about the last year inside her company, what it’s like hiring top tech talent for nonprofit pay, why engineers want to work for mission-driven companies, and the lessons other future founders might learn from her own path from ex-Googler to nonprofit founder.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Recidiviz
- Clementine Jacoby on LinkedIn
- More on the Recidiviz story from Freethink
- COVID-19 compels America to rethink who we lock up in prison
Ben Brody joins the show to talk about Lina Khan’s FTC confirmation hearing, and the antitrust hearing that made Apple look so bad. Then Anna Kramer discusses what’s happening to tech employees who moved all over the world during the pandemic, and now fear being called back to San Francisco. Finally, Janko Roettgers talks about his interview with Magic Leap CEO Peggy Johnson, the state of augmented reality, and terrible Apple TV remotes.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Ben Brody on Twitter
- Khan, Biden's pick for the FTC, rides tech skepticism to warm hearing
- App makers went to Washington and spilled all their tea on Apple
- Anna Kramer on Twitter
- More business travel, not less: Tech nomads are reckoning with a post-vaccine future
- Janko Roettgers on Twitter
- Magic Leap CEO Peggy Johnson: A new headset is just months away
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
A year ago, it felt like the scooter business might be over. By one estimate, spending on scooter rentals fell almost 100% in the spring of 2020. With billions of people stuck at home for an indefinite amount of time, could any of the fast-growing micromobility startups hang on? Wayne Ting, who had only just been promoted to CEO at Lime, the largest player in the space, wasn’t sure.
It didn’t take very long for things to turn around, though. As people looked for ways to get outside and get around that didn’t involve being trapped with strangers in subway cars or Ubers, they started picking up scooters and e-bikes. Before long, companies like Bird and Lime began to sense an opportunity to bring about the kind of local transportation revolution they’d been fighting for all along, even faster than they’d prepared for.
What does that future like? That’s what Ting joined the Source Code podcast to discuss: Why Lime started with scooters, what other modes of transportation it might get into, and most of all, why Lime (and seemingly every other transportation company on Earth) wants to be “the Amazon of transportation.” Trillion-dollar market caps, certainly. But what does that comparison mean, and what does it look like to bring the Bezos playbook to city streets everywhere?
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Wayne Ting on Twitter
- More on New York’s scooter pilot
- Our interview with Wayne from early in the pandemic
- The high-stakes data fight over the future of transportation
Ben Pimentel joins the show to discuss Coinbase’s huge debut on the public market, and where the company goes next. Then, Joe Williams explains why Microsoft bought Nuance, and why it might be about much more than health care. Finally, Issie Lapowsky discusses her story on the lives of Big Tech’s whistleblowers, and their plan to rethink how NDAs work in the industry.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Ben Pimentel on Twitter
- Coinbase COO: ‘The ship has sailed in crypto. It's here to stay.’
- How the crypto industry will ride the Coinbase wave
- Joe Williams on Twitter
- Why did Microsoft spend $19.7 billion to purchase Nuance? The answer may lie beyond health care.
- Issie Lapowsky on Twitter
- For Big Tech whistleblowers, there’s no such thing as 'moving on'
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Jillian C. York has been thinking about free speech online for more than a decade. In her latest book, “Silicon Values: Silicon Values: The Future of Free Speech Under Surveillance Capitalism,” she examines the history of free speech, moderation, censorship and policy across platforms from Facebook to YouTube and in countries around the world. She joins the show to discuss the themes from her book, plus what platforms got right about the pandemic, why global companies need a more global perspective on expression, and what other platforms can learn from Reddit.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Jillian C. York on Twitter
- “Silicon Values: The Future of Free Speech Under Surveillance Capitalism”
- A list of many of the books and authors she mentions
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Tom Krazit joins the show to discuss the end of the Google v. Oracle saga, and what it means for the tech industry. Then Tomio Geron explains why Coinbase is on fire right now, and what to watch for in its direct listing this week. Finally, Anna Kramer updates us on the latest in the Amazon union battle in Bessemer, Alabama.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Tom Krazit on Twitter
- The software industry dodges an API tax in Oracle decision
- Tomio Geron on Twitter
- Coinbase reports $1.8 billion revenue in first quarter
- Everything you need to know about the Coinbase direct listing
- Anna Kramer on Twitter
- Amazon workers voted not to unionize in Alabama, but the fight's not over
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Jesse Levinson spent six years building a vehicle — don’t call it a car, just call it Zoox — before he decided to show it to anybody. The co-founder and CTO of Zoox has been working on autonomous transport for more than 15 years, and since 2014 has been designing and building a new kind of robotaxi designed for a driverless world. In December of 2020, Zoox finally revealed its first product, and Levinson said the company’s getting closer to letting regular people get inside.
Levinson joined the Source Code podcast to talk about the state of Zoox, and the autonomous vehicle industry as a whole. A few years ago, companies were making grand proclamations about the immediate future, but Levinson and Zoox are a bit more conservative in the short run. In the long run, though, they’re pretty sure autonomy will change everything.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Zoox’s website
- The big vehicle reveal from December
- Businessweek’s Zoox profile from 2018
- Why Do Many Self-Driving Cars Look Like Toasters on Wheels?
First, we go over what’s in the Biden administration’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan, and what it might mean for tech. Then Shen Lu Shen joins the show to talk about the Chinese government’s recent crackdowns on Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent and other local tech giants. Finally, Megan Rose Dickey discusses the Asian American experience in the tech industry right now, and why the “model minority” myth continues to be a problem.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- President Biden wants to spend $500 billion on tech
- Shen Lu Shen on Twitter
- Chinese Big Tech's shadiest practices
- Megan Rose Dickey on Twitter
- Asian Americans in tech say they face ‘a unique flavor of oppression’
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Mitchell Baker has a tricky job right now. As CEO of Mozilla and chair of the Mozilla Foundation, she has to figure out both how to use Mozilla’s advocacy might to make the internet better, and build products that make Mozilla more money. Those are challenging things to do by themselves, and even harder to do simultaneously. Baker joins the Source Code podcast to talk about that tension, how she thinks blockchain can help make the internet better – and why it won’t solve everything — and why web browsers matter now more than ever.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Mitchell Baker on Twitter
- The 2020 State of Mozilla report
- Mozilla’s “Reimagine Open” project
- Mozilla laid off 250 people, and the company overhaul is just beginning
- Mozilla lost the browser wars. It still thinks it can save the internet.
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Emily Birnbaum joins the show to talk about the most recent Big Tech hearing, including what we learned and why we even keep having these hearings at all. Then, Tom Krazit discusses Intel’s $20 billion plan to get back on top of the chip market, and what’s next for AWS now that Adam Selipsky is CEO.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Emily Birnbaum on Twitter
- Seven things to know about the Big Tech CEO hearing
- It’s A Yes Or No Question. But What If The Answer Isn't So Simple?
- Tom Krazit on Twitter
- Intel’s chipmaking factories are now wide open for business
- Welcome Back To AWS, Adam Selipsky. Here's Your To-Do List.
- Nine things you need to know about the new AWS CEO
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Slack Chief Product Officer Tamar Yehoshua joins the show to talk about Slack's new features, its plan to be much bigger than a way to talk to your co-workers, and the future of the workplace in general.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Tamar Yehoshua on LinkedIn
- Slack Connect
- Slack’s tips for being better at Slack
- How Slack uses Slack
- Why Slack’s CEO says he's not worried about Microsoft
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Issie Lapowsky joins the show to talk about why researchers and social platforms want to work together, and why that’s a lot more complicated than it sounds. Then, Joe Williams explains why the digital signature industry is so hot right now, and where it goes from here.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Issie Lapowsky on Twitter
- Platforms vs. PhDs: How tech giants court and crush the people who study them
- Joe Williams on Twitter
- The e-signature war is going beyond the dotted line
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Two of the most important sales in NFT history happened last week: Beeple’s $69 million auction through Christie’s, and the $7.5 million sale of CryptoPunk #7804. Dylan Field, the CEO of Figma, was 7804’s previous owner. He joins the show to talk about what selling the punk meant to him, why crypto art is important — and why it’s booming right now — and where the real art lies.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Dylan Field on Twitter
- CryptoPunk #7804
- LarvaLabs’ Autoglyph project
- More on DAOs
- How Dapper Labs scored NBA crypto millions
- Beeple’s Everydays
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Joe Williams joins the show to talk about SolarWinds and the Hafnium hack, and what it means for the future of enterprise software (and for Microsoft). Then Emily Birnbaum explains who Tim Wu, Vanita Gupta and Lina Khan are and what they mean for the Biden administration’s antitrust plan. Finally, Anna Kramer discusses her story about the Internet Archive’s attempt to preserve the internet forever.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Joe Williams on Twitter
- Microsoft Exchange hack: China hacking group hits Microsoft
- Emily Birnbaum on Twitter
- 'She got into the weeds': Biden’s associate AG pick is a top tech watchdog
- ‘This could be dangerous’: Why Tim Wu’s appointment has Big Tech rattled
- A tiny team of House staffers could change the future of Big Tech
- Anna Kramer on Twitter
- The internet is splitting apart. The Internet Archive wants to save it all forever.
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Admiral Jim Stavridis and Elliot Ackerman join the show to talk about their book, “2034: A Novel of the Next World War,” and what the future holds for China, the U.S., cyberwarfare and hoverboards.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- “2034: A Novel of the Next World War”
- Admiral James Stavridis on Twitter
- Elliot Ackerman on Twitter
- Wired’s six-part series of excerpts
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
First, an update on the Google ad-tracking change. Then Ben Pimentel joins the show to discuss Square buying Tidal, and what it means for the fintech and music worlds. Later, Emily Birnbaum explains the bill moving through the Arizona legislature that has Google and Apple worried about the future of app stores. And finally, Janko Roettgers discusses Microsoft Mesh, the state of AR and VR headsets, and when we’re all going to be doing meetings as holograms.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Ben Pimentel on Twitter
- Jack Dorsey is so money: What Tidal and banking do for Square
- Emily Birnbaum on Twitter
- Apple and Google lobbyists are swarming Arizona over a bill that would reform the app store
- Virginia becomes second state with comprehensive privacy law
- Janko Roettgers on Twitter
- Microsoft’s master plan for consumer AR: Start with the plumbing
- How Microsoft Could Beat Facebook In AR
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Javier Soltero, the head of Google Workspace, joins the show to talk about his ideas about the future of work, building software that helps bosses and employees, work-life balance, privacy, and why calendars matter much more than you might think.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Javier Soltero on Twitter
- Google’s recent Workspace announcements
- David’s interview with Javier from last year
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Mike Murphy joins the show to talk about the tech industry's push for vaccine passports. Then Issie Lapowsky talks about Facebook's latest moves in Australia, before Hirsh Chitkara joins to discuss how chess became a streaming giant.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Mike on Twitter
- Blockchain, QR codes and your phone: the race to build vaccine passports
- Issie on Twitter
- Facebook says it gladly pays for news, but rejects 'open ended subsidies'
- Facebook made a deal to get news back in Australia
- Hirsh on Twitter
- How Chess.com built a streaming empire
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Andrew Frame is the CEO of Citizen, an app meant to help people know more about what’s going on in their community. Citizen has been scrutinized for enabling voyeurs, encouraging people to put themselves in danger, and glorifying crime through livestreaming videos. But Frame said that’s not how Citizen works, and that it actually just helps people stay safe and aware.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Citizen’s website
- Vice’s rundown of the criticism of Citizen
- More on Citizen’s COVID-tracking software
- How Citizen played a role in solving an SF kidnapping
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Issie Lapowsky dissects what's happening between Facebook, Google and the Australian government. Then Anna Kramer joins to explain why Atlanta is the next big US tech hub.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Issie on Twitter
- Facebook blocks all news in and from Australia
- Anna on Twitter
- Airbnb is building a new hub in Atlanta
For all the links and stories, head to
Source Code’s homepage.
Hirsh Chitkara on Bumble’s big IPO, Anna Kramer on Libby and the future of digital books, and Tomio Geron PayPal’s plan to win the future of finance.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Hirsh on Twitter
- Bumble IPO: Everything you need to know
- Anna on Twitter
- Libby is stuck between libraries and e-book publishers
- Tomio on Twitter
- PayPal wants to be an all-in-one super app. It has its work cut out.
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Anjali Sud, the CEO of Vimeo, joins the show to talk about all things video. She explains how she changed Vimeo’s products and culture completely, how it’s now trying to help businesses make great video for practically everything they do, and why the video industry is set to boom over the next few years. She also talks about changing Vimeo’s image, and what it takes to get out of the shadow of YouTube.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Anjali Sud on Twitter
- Vimeo’s website
- More on the spinoff plans
- More on Vimeo Create
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Tom Krazit joins the show to talk about Jeff Bezos stepping down as Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy stepping into the role, and where Amazon and AWS go from here. Then, Emily Birnbaum talks about two new tech-focused proposals — one on antitrust reform and one on Section 230 — that might matter more than most.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Tom on Twitter
- Andy Jassy, Amazon's new CEO, built a tech juggernaut
- Why the next CEO of AWS (most likely) already works for AWS
- Emily on Twitter
- This is the Democrats’ plan to limit Section 230
- Amy Klobuchar's legislation aims at Big Tech
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Proton Technologies CEO Andy Yen joins Source Code to talk about ProtonMail, building products with privacy in mind, the encryption debate, and whether Apple is really fighting for its users.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Andy Yen on LinkedIn
- ProtonMail
- Proton’s post on the EU’s anti-encryption proposal
- More on Apple’s pro-privacy stance
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Shakeel Hashim comes on the show to talk about GameStop’s craziest week ever: what it means that Reddit seems to run the stock market, whether Robinhood can survive the chaos, what regulators might be looking into, and what to about the fact that Elon Musk can tweet anything into existence. Then, Issie Lapowsky joins to talk about the first five decisions made by the Facebook Oversight Board, and what they tell us about the Internet Supreme Court’s plans going forward … and what they might do about Donald Trump.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- A rough timeline of the GameStop saga
- What really happened to Robinhood
- An interview with u/DeepFuckingValue
- A good profile of WallStreetBets
- Issie on the Oversight Board’s decisions
- Issie on the Board’s Trump plans
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Public co-CEO Leif Abraham comes on the Source Code podcast to talk about the future of investing for everyday people, what in the world is happening with GameStop, how to make a fintech app that’s fun to use without feeling like gambling, and much more.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Leif Abraham on Twitter
- Public’s website
- What’s going on with GameStop
- How bored tech workers started playing games with money
- The history of r/WallStreetBets
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Emily Birnbaum comes on the show to talk about President Biden’s early nominees and appointees, and what they might mean for the tech industry. Then, Joe Williams comes on to talk about SAP, its new(ish) CEO Christian Klein, and what it takes to turn around a tech giant.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Emily and Issie on the new names of the Biden administration
- Issie’s interview with Becca Slaughter
- Emily’s interview with Jessica Rosenworcel
- Issie’s profile of Vanita Gupta
- Joe’s profile of Christian Klein
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Martin Cooper, the inventor of the cell phone, comes on the show to talk about his new book, “Cutting the Cord,” and his thoughts on the tech industry as a whole. He dives into how he convinced Motorola to bet the company on a new technology, why he’s still optimistic about the cell phone’s potential, and what it will look like when robots replace us.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Marty Cooper’s book, Cutting the Cord: The Cell Phone Has Transformed Humanity
- Marty Cooper on Twitter
- A fun video on Cooper’s first cell phone call
- Cooper holding the original DynaTAC
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
It’s CES week! Because, you know, there’s nothing else going on. Mike Murphy comes on the show with Starship Technologies CEO Ahti Heinla to talk about all the robots, delivery vehicles and autonomous everything that showed up at the show. Then Emily Birnbaum comes on to talk about the increasing intersection between tech and politics. Finally, Janko Roettgers updates us on the state of TVs, and the ever-increasing streaming wars.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Mike on all the robots at CES
- Janko on the state of streaming at CES
- Ahti Heinla on Twitter
- Starship Technologies
- Emily on the intersection of politics and tech at CES
- David on the many, many, many screens at CES
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Dfinity Chief Scientist Dominic Williams comes on the Source Code Podcast to talk about his vision for a decentralized internet, what “The Internet Computer” looks like, and why the future of the internet looks less like hyperscale data centers and more like the blockchain.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Dominic Williams on Twitter
- Dfinity’s whitepaper
- Last week’s big Internet Computer status update
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Emily Birnbaum and Issie Lapowsky join Source Code to talk about social networks’ handling of President Trump after the riots in the Capitol. Then, Tom Krazit comes on to talk about whether having all those unauthorized people in the building created a security risk, and what the government and tech companies are doing about it.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- The other reason Facebook silenced Trump? Republicans just lost their power.
- Social networks didn’t create a coup. But they helped.
- Pressure mounts on social media giants to suspend Trump as rioters storm the Capitol
- Don’t worry about the cybersecurity fallout of the Capitol breach
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
Dylan Taylor, the CEO of Voyager Space Holdings, comes on the show to talk about the business of space. When will space tourism become a thing? Who’s building the first hotel in space? And where’s the money going to be in a year, or a decade, or a century? Are we all going to live on Mars? Taylor has thoughts on all of that and more.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Dylan Taylor on Twitter
- Voyager Space Holdings’ website
- Dylan’s blog on all things space
- More info on Robert Heinlein
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- MeWe
- Mark Weinstein on Twitter
- Mark’s TED Talk: The Rise of Surveillance Capitalism
- Mark’s thoughts on government regulation and social networks
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Emily’s antitrust rankings
- Anna Kramer on the tech workers turned Robinhood day traders
- Robinhood Financial to Pay $65 Million to Settle SEC Prob — WSJ
- Massachusetts Regulators File Complaint Against Robinhood — WSJ
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Margaret O’Mara on Twitter
- The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America
- Goodbye, San Francisco. Hello, Austin.
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Phil Libin on Twitter
- Mmhmm
- Our story on Zoom’s big platform ambitions
- Biz Carson on the rise of “Zoom for X” startups
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Protocol’s latest Manual: The New Enterprise
- Tom on AWS entering the multicloud era
- Issie and Emily Birnbaum on the weird Section 230 fight
- Issie’s story on the DOJ’s Facebook suit
- Issie on Van Buren v. United States
- Ajit Pai’s departure announcement
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Shakeel on Airbnb’s IPO
- The S-1s: Roblox, Wish, Affirm, and Airbnb
- Rahul Vohra on Twitter
- Superhuman
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Shakeel’s story on the DoorDash IPO
- Trump’s China-investment Executive Order
- Vaping Xboxes
- Biz’s story on Hopin
- Vanessa Wu on Twitter
- Rippling’s website
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Issie’s story on social’s election performance
- Emily and Issie’s story on whether labeling bad content actually works
- iFixit’s website
- Kyle Wiens on Twitter
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Biz’s story on SF’s office reopening
- Bradley Tusk on Twitter
- Bradley Tusk’s election memo to companies and founders
- Brian Armstrong’s Coinbase memo
- Biz’s inside story of the Expensify Biden email
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- The Source Code newsletter on Quibi’s demise
- Janko’s story on how Quibi changes T-Mobile’s fortunes
- Emily’s look at what the Google antitrust case means for Big Tech
- Ashley Boyd on Twitter
- Mozilla’s “Unfck the Internet” plan
- Mozilla’s call for Twitter and Facebook to turn off recommendations
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Biz’s story on the new pitch deck
- Biz’s story on Engageli
- Issie on the NY Post story
- Jeff D’Onofrio on Twitter
- Matt Mullenweg on the Tumblr acquisition
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Protocol’s story on the antitrust report’s most important findings
- Emily’s story on the small group of House staffers
- What critics say the antitrust report got wrong
- Jodie Kelley on Twitter
- The Electronic Transactions Association’s website
For more on the topics in this episode:
- The Verge’s roundup of Amazon’s product event
- Janko Roettgers’ story on Luna
- Issie on the DOJ’s Section 230 proposal
- Damien Kieran on Twitter
- David’s Q&A with Damien from February
- Wired’s story on the Twitter hack from this summer
- Twitter’s latest security blog post
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- David’s story on Apple One
- Tom Krazit’s story on Snowflake’s IPO
- Shakeel’s story on Warren Buffett’s involvement
- Shakeel’s story on Unity’s unusual, successful IPO
- Janko’s story on Facebook’s AR and VR plans
- Issie Lapowsky’s story on the latest with TikTok
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Biz’s story on the Long-Term Stock Exchange
- Is everyone actually leaving San Francisco?
- Emily’s interview with Jessica Rosenworcel
- Emily’s story on the Biden FCC frontrunners
- David’s story on Microsoft and Google
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Janko’s story on Apple acquiring Spaces
- More on the Zoom outage from Monday
- Why MelodyVR acquired Napster
- Issie’s story on the latest Section 230 lawsuit
- David’s story on Koji
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
(Programming note: the podcast is off next week.) For more on the topics in this episode:
- Issie’s story on Facebook’s moderation data
- BuzzFeed’s story on Facebook’s fact-checkers
- More on Ethan Schulman’s ruling against Uber and Lyft
- Biz’s story on Epic’s fight with Apple and Google
- Biz’s interview with Tim Sweeney
- Coda
- Shishir Mehrotra on Twitter
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- The BBC on Uber’s Autocab acquisition
- More on the App Store’s controversial game policy
- Bloomberg on Rackspace’s rough week
- The latest on the Trump / China story
- Emily’s story on CFIUS and TikTok
- Fanbytes
- Tim Armoo on Twitter
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- All of Protocol’s tech hearing coverage
- A video of the full 5.5-hour hearing
- David’s story on Trump’s TikTok ban
- @NatGeo on Instagram
- Josh Raab
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
This week on the show, Emily Birnbaum on the big tech CEO hearing and section 230 silliness, Tom Krazit on Slack’s antitrust fight with Microsoft, and Affirm CEO Max Levchin on why every tech company wants to be your bank.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Protocol’s primer on this week’s tech CEO hearings
- Emily’s story on the structure of the hearings
- Tom’s story on Slack’s antitrust complaint
- Affirm
- Max Levchin on Twitter
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
This week on the show, Shakeel Hashim on Jio deals and Airbnb “kindness cards,” Emily Birnbaum on the Privacy Shield fiasco, and Yubico CEO Stina Ehrensvard on fixing the internet’s gaping security holes.
For more on the topics in this episode
- More on the Jio / Google deal
- The brutal response to Airbnb’s kindness cards
- The New York Times interviewed the Twitter hackers
- Emily’s story on the EU-US Privacy Shield issue
- Yubico
- The FIDO Alliance
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
In this week’s episode: Biz Carson on Peter Thiel and a network of cameras hidden all over San Francisco, Mike Murphy on the high-tech future of post-COVID healthcare, and NYU’s Arun Sundararajan on the Uber-Postmates acquisition, the future of delivery, and what every company needs to learn from the pandemic.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Source Code on the Uber-Postmates details
- The WSJ on Peter Thiel’s changing relationship with Trump
- The NYT on Chris Larson and his network of cameras
- Protocol’s Health Care Manual
- Arun Sundararajan’s website
- Arun’s book, The Sharing Economy
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.
In this week’s episode: Janko Roettgers on AR acquisitions and moderation decisions, Emily Birnbaum on how NDAs changed Silicon Valley, and Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince on what internet companies should do about the bad people on the internet.
For more on the topics in this episode:
- Source Code on the skinny bundle price hikes
- Google’s announcement of the North acquisition
- Emily’s story on NDAs in tech
- Cloudflare
- Matthew Prince on Twitter
For all the links and stories, head to Source Code’s homepage.