Internet History Podcast

215. The Biography Of Demis Hassabis Apr 1, 2026 48:54 This episode explores the fascinating journey of Demis Hassabis and the development of AI through the lens of Sebastian Mallaby's book, The Infinity Machine. We delve into the minds of AI pioneers, their motivations, and the race to achieve superintelligence, offering insights into the future of technology and humanity.Buy the book here: https://amzn.to/4sHzfS1 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/priva

214. Chris Dixon of a16z Dec 22, 2025 57:20 Chris Dixon shares his journey from early programming experiences in the 1980s to becoming a prominent figure in venture capital and cryptocurrency. He discusses the founding of Site Advisor, the lessons learned from its acquisition by McAfee, and the challenges of starting Hunch. Dixon reflects on his experiences in angel investing, the creation of Founder Collective, and his role at Andreessen H

213. Datadog Founder Olivier Pomel Dec 15, 2025 45:07 Olivier Pomel is the cofounder/CEO of Datadog. We trace his path from French open-source tinkerer to NYC founder, the dev-vs-ops friction that sparked Datadog, finding product-market fit through integrations, and the choice to stay independent en route to a 2019 IPO and S&P 500. Olivier shares scaling war stories, culture and GTM lessons, and what observability means in an AI era. If you build

212. Susan Lyne Part 2 Dec 8, 2025 45:11 Part 2 of the Amazing career of Susan Lyne. Working with Martha Stewart. Gilt Groupe. Becoming a VC. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

211. Susan Lyne Part 1 Dec 1, 2025 50:01 I’ve maybe never interviewed anyone in my entire time as a historian and podcaster who has had a career as broad and varied as Susan Lyne. Yes, I obviously wanted to talk to Susan about her role helping startup Gilt Group, and her current role as the managing partner of the VC firm BBG Ventures. But, holy how. Susan also launched and oversaw the golden era of Premiere Magazine. She was the CEO of

210. Esther Dyson Nov 23, 2025 1:10:03 In the more than 200 episodes I’ve done for this podcast, never has the designation “legend” been more appropriate. Esther Dyson is a legend of modern technology, having been present for so many key moments from the early PC era through to the AI era. She’s advised, interviewed and mentored basically every major tech figure over the last several decades. Dyson shares her unique journey from growin

209. Henry Blodget, Founder Of Business Insider Nov 17, 2025 1:05:34 Henry Blodget shares his journey from a history major to a prominent figure in finance and journalism, discussing the rise of the internet, the dot-com bubble, and the lessons learned from that era. He reflects on his career, including his famous $400 price target Amazon prediction, the evolution of media with the launch of Business Insider, and the current landscape of AI and investing.Chapters00

208. Clément Delangue Of Hugging Face Nov 9, 2025 53:59 Hugging Face Founder Clément Delangue discusses his journey to founding Hugging Face, emphasizing the importance of community, collaboration, and open-source technology in the AI landscape. He reflects on the evolution of AI technology, the significance of user feedback, and the need for a diverse range of AI models. TakeawaysClem's first computer experience involved internet trading with sibling

207. John Borthwick Of Betaworks Nov 3, 2025 56:53 John Borthwick shares his journey from a tech-savvy youth to a prominent figure in the New York tech scene. He discusses his early experiences with computers, the transformative impact of the World Wide Web, and the vibrant tech culture of the 90s. Borthwick reflects on his role in creating Total New York, the lessons learned from the AOL acquisition, and the challenges faced during the dot-com bu

206. Jimmy Wales, Founder Of Wikipedia Oct 28, 2025 1:14:32 Welcome BACK to the Internet History Podcast. After essentially a 5 year hiatus, the Internet History Podcast is back, fully back, a whole slate of episodes coming to you, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to have our relaunch episode be with Jimmy Wales. What can I tell you? He’s the founder of Wikipedia. We get deep into the history of all that but also get into how he’s thinking about the web and

205. Margit Wennmachers Of a16z Oct 27, 2025 1:04:38 People know that a16z changed tech by turning VCs and founders into rock stars. You know the names. But there’s one name you might not know, that real heads, deep inside the industry have known very well over the years. The legend, Margit Vennmachers. You know all those a16z names because of Margit, because of how she helped Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz and others build a16z into the most prom

204. Fred Wilson, Of Union Square Ventures Oct 26, 2025 1:03:03 For my entire career in tech and startups, Fred Wilson has been like the god-level VC in the New York City ecosystem. Fred got his start investing before the dotcom bubble, rode the bubble investing in the earliest internet companies to great success, and then turned Union Square Ventures into the premier venture capital firm on the east coast. Hear the story of Fred’s investments in Geocities, Et

203. Shirish Nadkarni On Microsoft, Hotmail, MSN and Blackberry Internet Email Oct 19, 2021 34:18 Serial entrepreneur Shirish Nadkarni came to the U.S. as a teenager with $25 in his pocket. After graduating from Harvard Business School, he worked at Microsoft where he engineered the $400 million acquisition of Hotmail and launched MSN.com, the world’s leading web portal.Striking out on his own in 1999 at the height of the dot-com boom, he founded TeamOn Systems, an early pioneer

202. The del.icio.us Story With Joshua Schachter Oct 23, 2020 1:00:57 Joshua Schachter, founder of del.icio.us, is someone I’ve wanted to talk to from the very first day of this podcast. As we’ll discuss, del.icio.us was such a standard bearer of the web 2.0 era. Of user generated content. Of sharing long before Facebook or Twitter or any of that. If my email chain is to be believed, this episode has been four years in the making, and I’m glad Josh and I found the t

201. The History of Audible With Angelika Fuellemann Aug 11, 2019 25:47 Angelika Fuellemann is a designer who worked early on with BookSense.com, then got hired by Audible early on, so this is the early story of Audible. It’s funny… audio, streaming music, podcasts, audiobooks, it seems so obvious now, but it really is funny to look back and think about how off the wall this seamed before the smartphone. You mean books on tape will be a thing?  Hosted on Acast. S

200. Professional Blogging Pioneer Josh Marshall Jul 14, 2019 1:17:55 Josh Marshall is one of the key people who brought blogging into the realm of serious, award winning and respectable journalism. The story of his blog/publication, Talking Points Memo, or TPM is the story of blogging becoming legit and serious, but also the story of modern media over the last 20 years of digital disruption. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

199. Is Tech Making Us- Bored, Lonely, Angry, Stupid? Jul 1, 2019 40:11 Is technology really rotting our brains, destroying our society... or is that what everyone has always worried about with every technological advance, going back to tv, or telephones, or even writing letters? The new book, Bored, Lonely, Angry, Stupid: Changing Feelings about Technology, from the Telegraph to Twitter tries to look at this question from a historical perspective. Is it really differ

198. Inventor of the Hashtag, Chris Messina Jun 16, 2019 1:15:47 Well, as we say in this episode, he’ll always be known as the inventor of the hashtag, but Chris Messina has been central to so many things in tech over the last 20 years or so. Helped Mozilla launch Firefox. Founded BarCamp where so much Web 2.0 goodness happened and was launched. Cofounded the first co-working space in San Francisco. Helped Google try to grok social with Google+. Oh, and that ha

197. The Internet Bookshop Story With the Tech Business History Podcast Jun 2, 2019 50:08 I’ve said before I wish I could cover technology history beyond just North America, more… Well, Charles Miller has started a great podcast in Britain called Tech Business History. Charles used to report on the tech business as a BBC documentary producer. In the first series of his podcast, he’s exploring the dot com boom in the UK with some of the people he met when he was filming for the BBC back

196. Google, Twitter and More With Karen Wickre May 18, 2019 1:30:10 Everyone knows Karen Wickre, because she’s one of those classic connectors. Once we finally got in touch, I wasn’t surprised to learn we knew about half a dozen of the same people though we had never remotely crossed paths. But Karen knows everyone because she’s popped up Zelig-like in a bunch of interesting places over the course of tech history over the last 30 years or so. Early tech journalism

195. Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott May 4, 2019 1:25:03 Kevin Scott is the current Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft. We talk about his entire career, how being an academic seemed to be his path before he transformed the ads system at Google. Then he revolutionized the entire advertising industry at AdMob; is credited by some people by saving LinkedIn from technical rot; and now, today, oversees Microsoft's efforts in AI, VR/AR all the future thing

194. The History of the ISP Industry With Sonic's Dane Jasper Apr 20, 2019 1:26:20 Today we continue my efforts to preserve the history of the ISP industry. Today it feels like the Internet is simply all around us all the time, but there are amazing entrepreneurial stories about how that crucial infrastructure was laid. Today we talk to Sonic founder Dane Jasper, who can not only give us the history of the industry, but the present day as well, as Sonic is still a thriving and i

193. The Home Page Film With Doug Block Apr 6, 2019 1:00:18 20 years ago, the acclaimed documentarian Doug Block released a landmark film, Home Page. Doug’s documentary accidentally chronicled the birth of blogging, featuring several people we’ve talked to on this very show, including Justin Hall. But the documentary also captured a moment in time, the web going mainstream, the beginnings of the dotcom bubble, the early days of Wired, Hotwired and Suck and

192. Hulu's Founding and Digital Design With Dan Maccarone Mar 23, 2019 1:01:18 Dan Maccarone is a digital design veteran, websites, products, strategy. He's got some amazing stories about the dotcom bubble, about the aftermath, and the rise of Web 2.0. He shares some unique design lessons but also, the story of the birth of Hulu, which I don't think has really been covered anywhere before. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

191. Bringing The WSJ Online With Rich Jaroslovsky Part 2 Mar 10, 2019 45:22 Part two of the WSJ's online adventures intersect with several other stories we've covered on here over the years. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

190. Bringing The WSJ Online With Rich Jaroslovsky Feb 25, 2019 45:31 We’ve had a couple of people come on here to discuss how the New York Times got online, but the spiritual yin to their yang is the Wall Street Journal and we haven’t done enough to explore their path to embracing the internet. It’s worth doing that because they embraced a different model from basically day one. Almost alone among the web media pioneers, the Journal went the subscription route. So,

189. A Legal History of the Web Era With Richard Chapo Feb 10, 2019 54:38 It’s bothered me for a while that over the 5 years or so of this podcast, we haven’t focused very much on some corners of the history. For example… the legal side? Copyright law? Intellectual property law? How much have we talked about disruption and piracy and filesharing and all that stuff? So, I spoke to Richard Chapo, who has been doing Internet Law since the web went mainstream. We talk about

188. TheGlobe.com Story With Stephan Paternot Part III Jan 26, 2019 37:35 Part three of our epic conversation with Stephan Paternot. Here's what happens when you've been through the wringer. When you've been to the top of the rollercoaster and also down to the bottom. Here's how you take stock of your life, how you reinvent yourself, re-find you entrepreneurial spirit... I feel like there are so many lessons in these three episodes. Lessons for entrepreneurs today. Less

187. TheGlobe.com Story with Stephan Paternot Part II Jan 6, 2019 1:04:43 Ok, part 2 of the Stephan Paternot mega-episode right now. This is where we get into the meat of it, the good stuff, the whole crazy roller coaster ride of being the hottest startup of the dotcom era. And I was going to make this the last episode, but as I was editing this, I realized that after we get done with this story, Stephan talks a lot about what happens after... what happens after you've

186. TheGlobe.com Story with Stephan Paternot Dec 24, 2018 50:19 I said in the book, I think TheGlobe.com was the quintessential dot-com company. We spoke to one of the cofounders previously, Todd Krizelman. Todd was great, but he was time constrained and he didn’t quite get as personal about the story as I would have hoped. Well, I finally got to talk to the other founder of TheGlobe, Stephan Paternot. And Stephan was… AMAZING. He shared the whole story, the w

185. Ripple's David Schwartz Dec 10, 2018 39:42 David Schwartz is the Chief Technology Officer at Ripple, the company behind the cryptocurrency XRP. What is it like to start, build and build out a crypto startup? Is it different than the web and internet startups that we’ve covered on this show for years? What is Ripple? How is it unique in the crypto ecosystem? What is it trying to do for the world? All of this… and yes, why is crypto so triba

184. GV's Ken Norton Nov 25, 2018 1:19:36 Ken Norton is a partner at GV, Alphabets venture capital arm, but before that, he was a product manager at Google, where he led the development of products like Google Docs, Google Calendar and Google Mobile Maps. But he was also early at JotSpot which became Google sites, was a product manager at Yahoo, was an early employee at CNET and was CTO of Snap, a company probably none of you have ever he

183. Selling the First Facebook Ads, With Matt Britton Nov 11, 2018 28:35 Matt Britton not only sold the first ads to and for Facebook, way back in 2004, he gives us a really insightful and, frankly, unbiased look at what Facebook was like as a company in its very earliest days. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Emergency Podcast Announcement Nov 2, 2018 1:44 Emergency Podcast Announcement Link to Amazon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

182. Google's Matt Cutts @mattcutts Oct 28, 2018 1:01:50 I figure most of you should know who Matt Cutts is, but if you don't, let's just leave it at this: he's about to give you the best, most behind-the-scenes oral history of early Google we've gotten so far on this podcast. He was the head of Google's web spam team for nearly 15 years. He's also the current head of the USDS, so if you what to know what YOU can do for your country—if you're in technol

181. (Ch. 7.5) The Story of craigslist Oct 13, 2018 22:22 SUMMARY:The history of Craig Newmark, craigslist and other odds and ends that didn’t make the book! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

180. Part 2 With John McCrea Sep 30, 2018 1:31:18 Simple enough: Part 2 with John McCrea. More on SGI, more on doing battle with Microsoft in the 90s. And... interesting stuff on VR and the future... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

179. On Silicon Graphics with John McCrea (Pt. 1) Sep 17, 2018 1:11:20 John McCrea is a Zelig-like personality who pops up in so many of the narratives we've already covered: Apple. Netscape. Doing battle with Microsoft. This is part one, mostly about Silicon Graphics, a company I had been thinking about doing an episode on for a while now, to really rejuvenate that company’s reputation, historically. For reasons that will be obvious when you listen. H

178. On Google's 20th Birthday - The History of Google Sep 1, 2018 1:35:02 On Google's 20th Birthday (September 4th) a re-cutting and re-airing of my comprehensive history of Google, from it's inception through its IPO. Happy Birthday, Google! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

177. NandO.net with Fraser Van Asch Aug 19, 2018 37:15 Nando.net was not only a very early experiment in bringing journalism to the web, it was also one of those local ISP's that flowered in the era of the early 1990s. Fraser Von Asch was not only one of the key players at The News & Observer (thus, "NandO") who brought the project to life, he is another person who has straddled the media industry between the print and digital eras and can give us

176. The Epic Fail of Digg V.4 With Will Larson Aug 6, 2018 49:55 This story has gone down in Silicon Valley lore as the ultimate cautionary tale. Digg was the earliest high flying startup in early social media. But then, other startups like Facebook and Twitter started to steal the limelight. So Digg tried to keep up by launching the infamous Digg version 4. And… it’s a disaster. Users hate it. So much so, that many people feel that the reason Reddit is Reddit

175. How the Internet Came to Pakistan With Imran Haider Jul 22, 2018 41:23 Today, we're going to continue our occasional project of getting oral histories and personal anecdotes about how, exactly, the Internet and the web came to various places around the world. On this episode we're going to look at how the Internet came to—and is still in the process of coming to—Pakistan. Imran Haider is a listener to the show, works in the tech industry, and analyzes the south asian

174. Bringing the NYTimes and MSNBC Online With Lisa Napoli Jul 8, 2018 1:05:59 Lisa Napoli got a job straight out of college at CNN in its earliest days, which is a crazy startup story in it’s own right. But then she worked for a time at Delphi, which was an early online service and competitor to AOL and Prodigy that I don’t think we’ve covered much here before. And then she helped bring the NYTimes online with CyberTimes, which, as she said, is forgotten to history even by

173. Netscape's Rosanne Siino Jun 24, 2018 1:01:44 Rosanne Siino has been on my list to talk to from day one of this podcast. As you know, I started by reaching out to Netscape folks and Rosanne was the head of communications for that very first dotcom company. She saw it all, she can give us her take on both the engineering side and the management side, since she was uniquely able to observe both. Rosanne and I were recently on a documentary seri

HUGE Podcast Announcement Jun 16, 2018 3:07 HUGE Podcast Announcement! Details on how to pre-order the podcast book! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

172. How Politics Came to the Web With Karl Mattson Jun 10, 2018 53:34 Today we're going to go back to take a look at early journalism on the web. Karl Mattson helped launched one of the first political news websites, ElectionLine. He helped cover the 1996 election when covering an election on the web was a completely new thing. He then moved to AOL, helped run their news channels and has some amazing historical details about he era, especially the Clinton intern sca

171. Claude Shannon, Father of Information Theory May 27, 2018 59:57 Claude Shannon was a mathematician, electrical engineer, and cryptographer known as "the father of information theory." In the pantheon of cool people who made the modern information era possible, he’s right up there. Today, we’re going to talk about Shannon’s life with Jimmy Sony and Rob Goodman, authors of a great biography of the man called A Mind At Play, How Claude Shannon Invented the Inform

170. The Godfather of Streaming Music, Robert Reid May 13, 2018 1:29:15 Summary:Robert Reid, the founder of Rhapsody, can be considered the Godfather (founding father?) of the streaming music reality we now live in. But guess what? That's only half of this episode! Because it turns out, Robert is the author of a book that was probably one of the biggest reasons I started doing this podcast. The book was Architects of the Web, 1000 Days that Built the Future of Bu

169. Kottke.org's Jason Kottke, @jkottke Apr 29, 2018 1:03:48 Jason Kottke, of kottke.org fame, was one of the early bloggers, one of the first bloggers to go pro, and one of the few solo bloggers still going. If you know Kottke.org, then you love it. How could you not? If you’ve never heard of it, you can thank me later. This episode examines what it means to be a publisher on the web for 20 years as well as the discipline required to find cool stuff on the

168. The History of Java With Todd Sundsted Apr 15, 2018 42:21 People have been yelling at me for years that I’ve not covered more technical aspects of the web’s history, especially things like Java. Specifically Java. The argument can be made that Java helped the web evolve into what it’s become. So, that’s why I was thrilled to sit down with Todd Sundsted, who is a developer who has been working with Java for more than 20 years. Todd walks us through the hi

167. NYTimes Tech Columnist, Farhad Manjoo @fmanjoo Apr 1, 2018 58:40 Today, a man who needs no introduction: New York Times Technology Columnist Farhad Manjoo. This episode was recorded about two months or so ago, so we talk about the book leave Farhad is on that he only recently made public, but of course, we get into his whole career and his unique vantage point and views on the world of tech. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

166. Amazon, Hulu and Oculus with Eugene Wei Mar 17, 2018 1:13:48 No joke, this is one of my favorite episodes we've ever done. Eugene Wei was an early employee at Hulu, so we get some details on that company for the first time, and he also worked at Flipboard and Oculus, so we get some important context especially on the future of VR and the like. But the most fascinating stories you'll hear will be about Amazon, where Eugene was the first analyst in the strate

165. Claire L. Evans, Author of Broad Band- The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet Mar 4, 2018 1:07:03 Claire Evans is the author of the new book: Broad Band The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet. This is the best tech history book I’ve read in a while and you know I read them all. Of special note, considering our 90s-heavy focus on this podcast, the book includes the stories of Word.com, which was a competitor to Feed.com (which we’ve previously covered) and Women.com which was a com

164. How the Web Came to Germany, With Thomas Ganter Feb 19, 2018 52:17 Podcast listener Thomas Ganter gives us a first person, anecdotal account of how the web came to Germany in the 1990s. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

163. The History of Online Video with JibJab's Gregg Spiridellis Feb 5, 2018 1:04:09 Gregg Spiridellis has been making things go viral on the web since before the term VIRAL was even a thing. His company, JibJab has been producing web videos since the dialup dotcom era, producing hits you might remember such as Elf Yourself, Nasty Santa and This Land Is Your Land. JibJab has survived the dotcom bust, the coming of broadband, the coming of YouTube, the coming of social media and th

162. Venrock's David Pakman on Apple's Music Group, N2K, eMusic and Dollar Shave Club Jan 21, 2018 41:35 David Pakman is a well respected venture capitalist at Venrock, but also a lifelong musician and music fan. Earlier in his career he played a significant role in bringing music to the web. David tells us about cofounding Apple’s Music Group, his role in facilitating the first digital sales of music online at dotcom-era companies N2K and MyPlay, and competing directly against iTunes when he was at

161. Jeff Bussgang on Open Market and early eCommerce Jan 8, 2018 39:20 It gets my goat that these days, the history of ecommerce begins and ends with Amazon. There were so many companies and big ideas that got us where we are today, and one of the most important companies was Open Market. Jeff Bussgang is here to tell us the (today) often overlooked story of the earliest days of trying to sell stuff on the web. Today, Jeff is a General Partner at Flybridge Capital Pa

160. Growing Up With The Web With Desiree Garcia @thedezzie Dec 18, 2017 46:36 An exploration of what it was like to come of age in the early web era. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

159. The Forgotten Story of PLATO, with Brian Dear Dec 11, 2017 1:08:42 Plato was an online and interactive learning computer system developed in the 1960s at the University of Illinois. But in the early 1970s, Plato got truly networked, and the users took over. Plato had already pioneered such things as touch screen computing, but the kids introduced and pioneered concepts like forums, message boards, e-mail, chat rooms, instant messaging, multiplayer games and even

158. Bob Stein of Voyager and The Criterion Collection Nov 27, 2017 59:31 Bob Stein was the founder of Voyager, publisher of the first consumer CDROM titles, and, far and away the leader of the CDROM industry in the late 1980s and early 90s. Bob was also one of the founders of the Criterion Collection, as well as the publisher of the first electronic books.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

157. Rob Malda (@cmdrtaco) on SlashDot and Social Media Nov 12, 2017 1:20:17 You might know him as Rob Malda, or you might know him as CmdrTaco, but he was the founder of the great geek social website Slashdot. Slashdot recently turned 20 years old, Rob commemorated this in a great Medium post, and so I reached out to him to tell us the story of one of the first great social media websites. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

156. Dave Winer on The Open Web, Blogging, Podcasting and More Oct 30, 2017 1:37:22 Dave Winer has been called the godfather of a lot of things. The godfather of blogging. The Godfather of Podcasting. One of the key people involved in the development of RSS. But as you’ll hear in this great and wide-ranging chat, Dave Winer is just a software developer who has never stopped tinkering, never lost his interest in coming up with new tools and new technologies. Dave was kind enough t

155. Giphy with Nicole LaPorte Oct 16, 2017 23:34 SUMMARY:Nicole Laporte has a cover story in Fast Company magazine this month about Giphy, potentially the next big story in online advertising and marketing, as well as… search? Read her profile of Giphy here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

154. Om Malik on Blogging and Web 2.0 Oct 1, 2017 1:08:21 Om Malik is, of course, a legend. One of the first journalists on the “tech beat” in the 1990s, one of the first bloggers to “turn pro,” one of the driving forces behind the Web 2.0 time period, and one of the most trusted analysts of the technology industry in general, today he is a venture capitalist at True Ventures. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

153. The AOL/Time Warner Merger - Crossover with the Acquired Podcast Sep 17, 2017 1:45:50 What is generally considered the worst merger of all time, and certainly the crescendo event of the dotcom bubble era, today we take a look at the AOL/Time Warner merger, again with the excellent guys at the podcast Acquired. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

152. David Shen on Early Yahoo and the Maturation of Online Advertising Sep 3, 2017 1:05:14 David Shen was employee #17 at Yahoo, where he eventually had a hand in, not only the birth of advertising as the primary business model for the web but, eventually, the development of digital ads into their more modern, interactive form. As you'll hear, David recounts the early days of Yahoo, surviving the dotcom bust and taking advertising beyond the simple banner ad.And he recounts all of this

151. Facebook's First Senior Software Engineer, Karel Baloun Aug 13, 2017 1:02:48 Karel Baloun was the first senior software engineer hired at Facebook in 2005. This was after the Accel round of funding, when Facebook truly began to staff up and grow up. Baloun was only at Facebook for a year, from 2005 to 2006, but he provides some amazing insights about the company. What was Facebook’s culture like in 2005? What were the key innovations that ultimately let Facebook succeed wh

150. More SoundCloud Chat with Buzzfeed's Ryan Mac Aug 6, 2017 24:28 Just as last week’s episode posted, another great piece about SoundCloud was posted on Buzzfeed by the great Ryan Mac. So, in a rare attempt by me to be topical, today’s episode is with Ryan Mac, discussing his article, which fills in some of the details about what Christina and I were speculating on last week.Ryan’s article can be found here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more infor

149. Christina Warren on SoundCloud Jul 30, 2017 1:08:32 Our friend Christina Warren is back for another analysis episode. Christina recently posted a tweetstorm about SoundCloud, and its prospects for the future. So she kindly agreed to come on the show, look at the history of SoundCloud as a company, and try to help me figure out why SoundCloud finds itself on the brink of oblivion. You all know Christina from her years at Mashable and most recently,

148. Don Melton on Apple, Safari, WebKit and Netscape Jul 23, 2017 1:49:52 Don Melton is popularly known as the father of the Safari web browser or WebKit. He’s basically a web browser legend. Not only does Don tell us a lot of great stuff about Safari, WebKit, Apple and more, but he was also an early Netscape employee, so we get some more great details about that company, especially in its later stages. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

147. The First Text Message With Neil Papworth Jul 9, 2017 26:24 The first text message (or, to be accurate, SMS message) was sent on December 3, 1992. It was sent by Neil Papworth, and it said, “Merry Christmas.” This is the story of that first text, recorded for the first time. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

146. Mike Slade on Steve Jobs' Return To Apple Jun 25, 2017 1:01:09 As promised, Mike Slade is back to tell stories from the period 1998 through 2004, when he was Special Assistant to Steve Jobs. Background details on the iMac, the iPod and the iPhone and more!  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

145. Brian Merchant, Author of The One Device Jun 18, 2017 59:45 Finally! A detailed history of the development of the iPhone inside Apple. But not only that, an extensive history of all the technologies that came together to make the iPhone possible. Lithium ion battery technology, touchscreen technology, Gorilla Glass, GPS, digital photography, maps… everything. The author, Brian Merchant, was kind enough to send an advanced copy and, as you’ll hear when I ta

144. The "First" Blogger, Justin Hall Jun 11, 2017 1:44:56 A lot of people give credit to Justin Hall for being, if not the first, then spiritually, at least, the “first” blogger. Since early 1994, first as Justin’s Homepage and at various points, as Justin’s Links from the Underground and Links.net, Justin Hall has been writing online and sharing online—especially, sharing himself online—longer than almost anyone else on the planet. Hear his story today,

143. Neil Hunt on the History of Netflix and Netflix Streaming May 29, 2017 1:16:18 For several months now, I've been complaining on Twitter and a bunch of other places that, for as ubiquitous as Netflix streaming has become—I think it's one of the most important technology products of the last decade at least— there's actually been comparatively little journalism or scholarship about how the product came about. That's why I was delighted to get acquainted with Neil Hunt, who is

142. Andy Rachleff @arachleff co-founder of Benchmark and Wealthfront May 21, 2017 47:05 Andy Rachleff was a co-founder of Benchmark, one of the most respected venture capital firms to this very day, and one of the biggest venture players during the dotcom era. On today’s episode, Andy gives us more background on eBay’s founding and what venture investing was like during the dotcom era. But Andy is also that very rarest of breeds, someone who became an entrepreneur AFTER an illustriou

141. Nathan Latka @NathanLatka of the Top Entrepreneurs Podcast May 13, 2017 21:16 Summary Check out The Top Entrepreneurs Podcast here!Books recommended on this episode:Storming the Magic KingdomWalt DisneyUnconventional SuccessSay EverythingThe Wikipedia RevolutionThe InnovatorsThe Expanse Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

140. The Google Chef, Charlie Ayers Apr 24, 2017 48:11 The famous Google Chef, Charlie Ayers, remembers joining Google when it was about 50 employees, the company’s early growth, culture, and the unique role he played in shaping that culture. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

139. The Napster Story with Jordan Ritter Apr 16, 2017 1:21:44 If you know the Napster story at all, then you know about the Shawn(Sean)s. Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker. But in my opinion, and in the opinion of a lot of other people, a name that you should be just as familiar with is Jordan Ritter. Napster was an incredible phenomenon, reaching tens of millions of users at its height, and though Jordan Ritter didn't invent Napster, he very much was responsibl

138. (Ch. 9.2) The History of Google Part 2 Apr 10, 2017 47:25 There was one important trait that Google shared with the dotcoms: it wasn’t making very much money. It’s somewhat forgotten, given what would come later, but Google existed for several years without much of a business plan. The vision Larry and Sergey had sold the Venture Capitalists on involved a three-pronged strategy. First, Google would license its search technology to the major portals. Seco

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