Thoughts in Between: exploring how technology collides with politics, culture and society

Feb 07 2023 41 ep. 108 mins 77

Thoughts in Between: exploring how technology collides with politics, culture and society Podcast artwork

Matt Clifford, cofounder of Entrepreneurs First, interviews the people behind some of the world's most important ideas. We explore in-depth some of the fastest-changing and most impactful areas of life, from technology to geopolitics and scientific progress to entrepreneurship. Guests include founders, investors, academics and journalists working and thinking at the frontier of these topics. Subscribe to the free newsletter at http://tib.matthewclifford.com/

Technology Business Government

Copy RSS

Subscribe on Podcast Addict

Rohit Krishnan and Visa Veerasamy on Talent and Ambition

Feb 07 2023 127 mins

Rohit Krishnan is an investor and writer; he is the author of Strange Loop Canon (he was previously on the podcast here). Visa Veerasamy is the author of Introspect and Friendly Ambitious Nerd, among other things. In this conversation we talk about whether entrepreneurs are born or made; the role of culture in ambition; how we can make people more ambitious and much more. --

Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha: The Startup of You

Jul 31 2022 54 mins

Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha are the co-authors of The Startup of You, which explores how to adapt, take risks, grow your network and transform your career. Reid was co-founder of LinkedIn and a partner at Greylock. He sits on the boards of a number of organisations including Microsoft, OpenAI and, of course, my company Entrepreneur First. Ben is an investor, entrepreneur and writ

Iason Gabriel: Artificial intelligence and moral philosophy

Jul 11 2022 97 mins

Iason Gabriel is a research scientist at DeepMind and was previously a lecturer in political and moral philosophy at Oxford University. His work focuses on the moral questions raised by artificial intelligence. In this conversation we discuss how and why AI is different from other technologies; the problem of value alignment in AI; what political philosophy can tell us about how to

Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross: Talent - How to identify winners around the world

May 16 2022 108 mins

Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross are the authors of a new book, Talent: How to identify energisers, creatives and winners around the world. Tyler is an economist, who is perhaps best known for his daily blogging at Marginal Revolution (which I've been reading since 2003!) and as the founder of Emergent Ventures, a grant-making programme focused on ambitious young people. Daniel is a Si

Kyla Scanlon: How the internet is changing finance, economics and everything else

May 09 2022 97 mins

Kyla Scanlon is a creator and educator who focuses on explaining finance and economics through her newsletter, YouTube and TikTok videos. She has a unique perspective on how the internet continues to change everything around us. In this conversation we discuss social media and the authentic self; Elon Musk, Twitter and free speech; memes as an investment strategy; the future of the

Stuart Buck: Making science funding work better

Apr 18 2022 102 mins

Stuart Buck is the Executive Director of the Good Science Project, a new initiative to make science funding more effective, innovative, and robust. This mission has been the major theme of Stuart’s career; he was previously Vice President of Research at Arnold Ventures, a large philanthropic foundation. In this conversation, we discuss the twin problems of reproducibility and inn

Tanya Filer: Making technology serve the public good

Apr 04 2022 102 mins

Tanya is an academic and entrepreneur. She leads the Digital State project at Cambridge University's Bennett Institute and is the founder of StateUp, an advisory firm focused on innovation that serves a public purpose. In this conversation, we talk about the idea of "public purpose technology", the companies that are building it and the investors that are funding it. We talk throug

Nadia Eghbal: Silicon Valley and the future of philanthropy

Mar 21 2022 112 mins

Nadia Eghbal is an independent researcher and writer. She’s the author of Working in Public, which is an ethnographic study of how Open Source Software is made and maintained. She recently won an Emergent Ventures grant to study and write about technology wealth and philanthropy. In this conversation, we discuss how and why technology entrepreneurs think differently about philant

Shashank Joshi: Ukraine - how we got here and what next?

Feb 27 2022 55 mins

Shashank Joshi is defence editor at the Economist. Long-time listeners may remember our conversation last year on geopolitics and security. Shashank joins me again today for a special edition on the situation in Ukraine. Shashank talks us through how we got here, what Putin wants, and some of the possible endgames. I should emphasise that we recorded this first thing Friday morning

Sam Arbesman: Science, institutional innovation and long term thinking

Feb 20 2022 95 mins

Sam Arbesman is a complexity scientist and writer and is currently a scientist-in-residence at Lux Capital, a leading venture capital fund. Sam’s writing covers many topics that will be familiar to Thoughts in Between readers and listeners. In this conversation, we discuss the need for institutional innovation in science, the value of long-term thinking, the value of historical l