Crafted

Hey everyone... so, in case you haven't heard... this show, Future Around & Find Out, has been nominated for a Webby for best tech podcast! *** VOTE HERE: https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2026/podcasts/shows/technology ***I was kind of being chill about this. I am, admittedly, not my own best hype man, but then I got riled up when I heard the hosts of The Vergecast, one of the other nominees and last year's winner, complain that they weren't winning by enough votes and that they wanted to win by such a large margin that it -- quote -- hurts everyone's feelings. Well, those are my feelings Nilay Patel was talking about! Look, I like the Verge -- and I definitely didn't have them on my list of people I might feud with this years -- but f* those guys! Let's win this thing!So could you please vote? Today, April 16th is the last day to do so and we're currently just behind, in second place. The link to vote is in the show notes. You can also find it on the show's website at Future Around dot comAnd what is it you're voting for? Well, if you've been listening then you already know what this show is all about, but I also thought for newbies and even for long time listeners, it might be fun for you to hear exactly what the Webby judges listened to when they voted for FAFO to be a best tech podcast nominee. They ask for ten minutes of audio, so I made a highlight reel — and here it is.*** VOTE HERE: https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2026/podcasts/shows/technology ***

We live in a world where every crisis lands in your pocket the moment it happens. The result? We're more informed than ever — and somehow less capable of doing anything about it.Inventor and investor Pablos Holman has a diagnosis: we're spreading ourselves across every problem, which means we're solving none of them. His prescription is uncomfortable — pick one thing, go all in, and cut the noise.***QUICK PLUG: Future Around & Find Out is nominated for a Webby for best tech podcast! Voting is open now for the People's Choice Award. Please vote before April 16th! https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2026/podcasts/shows/technology***Pablos is the co-founder of Deep Futures, where he hunts for inventors tackling world-scale problems: energy, water, food, waste, transportation. Not apps. Atoms. And thanks to advances in AI and software, these "impossible" problems are more solvable than ever — if the right people show up to back them.In this conversation, recorded at the fabulous PopTech conference, he makes the case that inventors are the most important creative class on earth — and the most invisible. They're undersupported, uncelebrated, and working alone in garages. Some of them are probably going to blow themselves up. Those are exactly the people he's looking for.We get into:Why doomscrolling is literally eroding your ability to make a differenceThe difference between craft (optimization) and creation (zero-to-one) — and why AI is great at one and struggling with the otherWhy you can name 100 musicians but fewer than two living inventorsHow solving energy unlocks clean water, sanitation, and climate — essentially for freeWhy software people are uniquely positioned to work on the hardest problems in the world right nowChapters:(01:15) - Why the world isn't as broken as your newsfeed makes it seem (03:00) - The sticky note exercise: how to pick the one problem worth your time (04:30) - Inventors are the most important creative class nobody talks about (07:00) - Living inventors you should actually know (09:00) - What AI is good at — and what it still can't do (12:30) - Why software people are the right ones to tackle deep tech problems (22:56) - Energy is the root problem — solve it and you solve a lot else (25:56) - Climate change needs a thousand solutions, not one big fix (28:26) - The fashion industry's dirty secret and what robots can do about it Links & ResourcesPablos Holman on LinkedInDeep Future: VC firm, book, and podcastSupport Future Around & Find OutFAFO is nominated for a Webby for best tech podcast! Vote now! Get the free newsletterAnd consider becoming a paid subscriber and help future proof this thing!Sponsor the show? Are you looking to reach an audience of senior technologists and decision-makers? Email me: dan@futurearound.com---Pablos's first appearance on the show covers his work at Blue Origin and Intellectual Ventures. Scroll in your podcast app to July 2025 to find that fun conversation. (Can listen before or after this one; not a prerequisite.) 

Hey, great news! We've been nominated by the Webby Awards for best tech podcast! Voting is open now and we're in second place for the popular choice prize. Just behind The Verge. They really don't need this win, but it would really help this show grow. Would you please (ask a friend to) vote for Future Around & Find Out? *** VOTE FOR FAFO ***OK, here's this week's FAFO Friday… (we record on Fridays and the show has Friday/weekend vibes, so just go with it no matter what day of the week it is :) This week, Kwaku and I…Gape at the moon in wonderAsk why we sent humans on this mission when space robots could've done the job (related: why climb Mount Everest?) Marvel at Anthropic's new Mythos model, which they say is remarkably good at finding flaws in the world's critical software — or is this just another example of their marketing savvy? — or both!?Dig into AI world models and Jeff Bezos's (modestly named) Project PrometheusAsk whether we want robots in our houses (yes, but only if they're dumb)Keep FAFO weird (because in the age of AI that's how you prove you're human)*** VOTE FOR FAFO ***

Future Around & Find Out is a best technology podcast nominee! And with your help it could be a winner. The Webby Awards voting is open now. Please vote for FAFO! Thanks to AI, “content is about to become infinite.” And just like the Internet disrupted distribution, AI is disrupting creation. And so when anyone, anywhere can create content, what's left? What's defensible? That would be trust and humanity. Live from Podcast Movement Evolutions at SXSW, I sit down with Jim Louderback — former VidCon CEO, Inside the Creator Economy newsletter writer, and media veteran — to unpack what's actually changing and what builders and creators should do about it.We get into why the "age of perfection" is over, why founders need a meme instead of an elevator pitch, and why putting a creator on your cap table might be the smartest move a startup can make. Jim makes the case for a trust economy where views and likes are meaningless — and where the real question is how far your trust graph extends. We also talk digital twins (and what happens when yours goes rogue), why events are still the best way to prove you're human, the state of journalism and public media, and why 2004's “Subservient Chicken” was so ahead of its time. Chapters:(01:30) - How AI disrupts creation (03:50) - The number of creators is about to double to 500 million (06:45) - We'll have “certified human” labels, just like “organic” and why the Subservient Chicken was so far ahead of its time (08:40) - The age of perfection is over (10:00) - The only thing that matters is trust (12:00) - Events, FTW! (13:45) - The elements of a great event are timeless (18:11) - Favorite moments from SXSW (21:56) - What's your meme? > What's your elevator pitch? (23:28) - Put a creator on the cap table (27:21) - Creator-community fit (29:38) - The challenges of being a journalist today (32:26) - Create your own digital twin (36:26) - Why John Green's jaw dropped when he learned of Dan's grandma ---Future Around & Find OutVote for FAFO to be a Webby Awards winner!Get the newsletter Sponsor the show? Want to share your message with senior technologists? Email Dan: dan@futurearound.com

Very fun news… The Webby Awards have just nominated Future Around & Find Out as a nominee for Best Technology Podcast!!!And you can help make it a Popular Choice winner. Winning would be great for the growth of show. Thank you!Please vote for FAFO! ---OK, on to today's episode… it's another good vibes rooftop episode recorded at SXSW. For the second year in a row I'm joined by Rob Kenedi, a fellow podcaster, who is the founder and host of Decelerator. Last year he, very memorably, said we were in the “fart app era of AI”. Meaning: people are trying stuff (a la the make-a-fart-sound apps that people built in the early days of the iPhone). So, we revisit that comment and ask where are we now? And what's defensible for app makers — and for creators like us?Podcaster that he is, Rob turns the tables on me and asks me a bunch of questions about how I'm approaching this question and I shared what was top of mind when I rebranded the show recently from CRAFTED. to Future Around & Find Out. Namely, I wanted to give the show more personality, but that is how you stand out right now and that's what going to be defensible in the age of AI. And the Webby nomination — you already voted, right?? — only makes me feel more confident in the rebrand and the addition of more of these casual “FAFO Friday” episodes that feature a lot more of my (and regular guest Kwaku Aning's) personality. (You'll hear more about how AI is changing the creator economy and why “being human” is so important in a few days when my episode with Jim Louderback, writer of Inside the Creator Economy, comes out; he gives a great annual talk at SXSW and I had seen it the day before recording with Rob.)In the meantime, come join Rob and me for some good vibes from Austin… And (ask your friends to) vote: https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2026/podcasts/shows/technology

Climate-tech founder Eben Bayer is on a mission to protect Spaceship Earth. And he says it's time for climate control, i.e. active measure that cool the Earth. Why? " Because all other reasonable approaches have failed miserably," he says, slapping the table for emphasis.Eben is the co-founder of Ecovative and MyForest Foods, the makers of MyBacon, which is sold in more than three thousand stores. It's a non-meat bacon, made from mycelium, which (more or less) means mushrooms roots. Fewer people eating meat —> fewer farting animals —> a cooler planet. And Eben's latest Earth-cooling idea is (nearly) out of this world. Eben wants to put giant parasols in the stratosphere where they could block sunlight from reaching Earth. With "shade-as-a-service" a maxed-out utility (say in Phoenix) could pay for shade to cool a city or an individual could pinpoint a shadow over their backyard for an afternoon barbecue.The idea is in its early stages, but Eben says it's feasible and it's the kind of big idea we need to get climate change under control. And while the idea of messing with the sun may sound scary, he says we alter the climate in all sorts of ways already: " We are geo-engineers. We farm animal livestock. We live on Planet Earth. We have impact. We emit CO2. We should not limit ourselves to modifying just one or two atmospheric gases to modify the planet. It's not how we operate, and it's an unbelievably constraining framing if you actually want to address this problem in a practical manner... When you start to take that frame, the options open way up."Eben is a fascinating guy — very steampunk in his approach to entrepreneurship — and I'm sure you'll find this interview eye-opening.And a special shout out to my field producer for this onsite recording from Troy, NY: my eleven-year old son, Julian! He was my camera and sound guy and he also makes his long-awaited (YouTube!) debut to ask Eben a question about protecting Spaceship Earth.

“Imagine a humanoid educator named “Plato”… Access to the classical studies is now instantaneous: literature, science, art, philosophy, mathematics, and history. Humanity's entire corpus of information is available in the comfort of your home.”— Melania Trump, FuturistAh, yes, I can't wait for my children to learn from an embodied AI. And that their access to everything be “instantaneous.” No struggle. No unreliable (fleshy) teachers. Just an embodied AI stuffed with the “entire corpus of information.” What an inspiring vision!Regular listeners to Future Around & Find Out will know that I'm a fan of robots (think: self-driving cars), but really don't understand why they need arms and legs (whether dog- or human-shaped). Well, as you may have seen our fever dream of AI with arms and legs reached the White House, with Melania and “Figure 3” competing to see which one could walk and talk more haltingly. (The robot was more engaging to listen to.) The robot was there, along with a patronizing display of first spouses from around the world, for a summit on education technology. So Kwaku and I use it as a jumping off point for this week's FAFO Friday (yes, delivered on a Saturday) this week. Kwaku, a tech consultant to many schools, and I discuss this insatiable need for humanoid robots, AI, and instant gratification. And, following up on my conversation earlier this week with Khan Academy's Chief Learning Officer, Kristin DiCerbo, we discuss what counts as a “productive struggle” and what's wasted effort when it comes to AI and learning. Please enjoy this very human conversation… full of totally unnecessary tangents, riffs, asides, non-sequiturs, and other detours that Plato, the humanoid teacher, would find inefficient and useless.

So what the heck should kids be studying today!?That's my opening question to Khan Academy's Chief Learning Officer, Kristen DiCerbo, a learning and AI expert who is back for her second appearance on the show. We discuss:Kristen's advice for what to study today: fundamentals, AI literacy, and critical thinkingHow helpful should AI be? Why the productive struggle is critical to learning, but also why we shouldn't "fetishize" struggleWhen should AI be Socratic — "and why do you think that?" — and when should it just give you the answer?The "5% problem" — why edtech that's proven to work still barely gets usedHow Khan Academy overhauled its classroom platform and evolved Khanmigo from a standalone chatbot into something woven into the whole learning experiencePersonalization that actually works How Khan Academy uses LLMs as judges to evaluate 20,000 student interactions a dayThe scenario planning report that imagines deepfakes of school principals and AI going underground in schoolsWhat parents should be asking their kids' schools about AI right nowWhat it looks like when a school implements AI well — and what it looks like when they don'tChapters:(01:44) - What the heck should kids be studying right now? (03:55) - Teaching critical thinking in the age of AI (06:37) - What successful schools are doing differently (08:37) - The real risk: not that kids use AI too much, but that they don't use it enough (10:52) - My 13-year-old has to check five apps just to find his homework (11:52) - "Beyond the AI inflection point" — three scenarios, none of them great (16:30) - Should we just make every school a trade school? (19:41) - What should parents be asking their kids' schools? (22:27) - Khan Academy's Winchester Mystery House problem (26:28) - Personalized learning — what works and what surprisingly doesn't (29:32) - Kids are bad at asking questions and that's actually the point (32:01) - "I DON'T KNOW" in all capital letters — the Socratic method's breaking point (34:26) - Should an AI tutor give tough love? (37:01) - Why Khanmigo is fundamentally different from ChatGPT (40:11) - Don't fetishize struggle — but your kid still needs it (42:39) - Khan Academy's productive struggle: building evals from scratch (45:41) - What gives Kristen optimism Support Future Around & Find OutFollow Dan on LinkedInGet the free Future Around & Find Out newsletterBecome a paid subscriber and help future proof the podcast!Sponsor the show? Are you looking to reach an audience of senior technologists and decision-makers? Email me: dan@futurearound.com---Music by Jonathan Zalben

South By Southwest was strange this year. No convention center to anchor the event (it's a giant hole in the ground right now, being rebuilt from scratch, much like [insert your analogy here] will also need to be rebuilt in the age of AI). This South By was a all about convergence. How AI will impact [xyz] continues to be the dominant theme at the conference and in so much tech coverage (including on this podcast; sorry!). So, Kwaku and I report on the convergences we saw (and not only at Amy Webb's annual talk where “convergence” was her key word). This includes everything from:the RoboCup, a quest (a la Deep Blue winning at chess) for humanoid robots to be able to defeat a team of great humans at soccer pants that you wear (or do they wear you) that are kind of like an e-bike for your legsan AI-powered Cyrano de Bergerac that can help you whisper sweet nothings in your lover's earfalling in love with an AI (and their business model)and AI that can tell you whether to have another slice of brisket (yes, duh, you're in Austin!) So, come on along to Austin for what's become an annual tradition: Kwaku and my SXSW Rooftop Revue. This year recorded in fabulous 4K with a three camera setup that we didn't deserve! Big thanks to Podcast Movement Evolutions, Nomono, The Podcast Academy, and Simplecast!And stay tuned for a few more episodes from a wild week!Chapters:(00:25) - SXSW 2026: everything everywhere all at once (01:23) - Kwaku stumbles into a World Economic Forum session on convergence (05:54) - Reinforcement learning and robot soccer (09:07) - Amy Webb's three convergences: emotional outsourcing, unlimited labor, human augmentation (09:55) - Pants that are an e-bike for your legs (11:27) - The mental tax of running a fleet of AI agents (13:28) - Your boss wants you to pay for your own augmentation (16:07) - Esther Perel, Spike Jonze, and falling in love with Her business model (18:55) - An AI Cyrano de Bergerac to help you win your lover's heart (25:30) - IRL is the antidote! ---Future Around & Find OutGet the newsletter, support the show, check out past episodes: https://www.futurearound.com

How do you build a system for turning wild ideas into world-changing innovations? Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots at X, The Moonshot Factory, has spent over 15 years leading Google's audacious innovation lab—the birthplace of Waymo, Google Brain, and other breakthrough projects.In this special episode, recorded live in Austin at last year's SXSW, Astro shares the playbook to create a moonshot factory.(I'm at this year's SXSW right now and you'll hear all about it soon. If you are here, drop me a line and let's meet up!)What You'll Learn in This Episode:The “Train the Monkey First” approach to innovationWhy audacity, humility, and intellectual honesty are key to moonshotsHow your org can get more 10x (not +10%) outcomes — and how to avoid the “innovator's dilemma”Why you should “greenlight everything” and then redlight most projects quickly, following kill criteria you've agreed to in advanceWhere X is placing bets today, including climate-tech, modernizing the electric grid and bioengineering---Future Around & Find Out newsletter and podcast: https://www.futurearound.com

Greetings from SXSW, where I'm learning, recording, and eating... You'll hear all about it soon... For now, enjoy this short, sweet, and geeky bonus episode.Have you seen that weird graph about all the jobs that AI is going to kill? It looks like an ink blot or a Rorschach test... It's from an Anthropic report and it's really making the rounds. If you follow tech stuff on social media you've probably seen it. The report is interested, but I'm convinced people are only sharing it because the graph looks cool and people will think they're smart if they share this inscrutable data visualization... Anyway, here's a very short excerpt of my upcoming interview with Paul Ford (@ftrain), one of my favorite tech writers and the founder of Aboard. He and I took a break from talking AI and such to geek out on this data visualization and why it's so bad, plus I told him about how I used AI to make my own version of a radar graph (about how many, and which kinds of, tacos I will and could theoretically eat in Austin). ---Subscribe to the Future Around & Find Out newsletter!

So why is one of the world's leading AI researchers teaching AI to understand pain and suffering? Well, Daniel Hulme says that if we build an empathetic AI, perhaps even a conscious one, then we'll be safer. His hypothesis is that a "zombie" AI will eat our brains, but an empathetic AI would stay aligned with us. So he's building this "antivirus" (with AI, of course) and he's very aware that this sounds crazy or like "something from Marvel."That's just some of what broke my brain in this conversation with one of the world's top AI researchers and founders. And Daniel has serious credibility, so I'm not dismissing the threat he sees — you know, the one where we all get turned into paperclips. Daniel sold his company Satalia to WPP, where he now serves as Chief AI Officer. He's just founded Conscium, which verifies that AI agents are safe and can do what they promise — and is also researching consciousness and pain. Some of the world's leading AI thinkers are on the advisory board and Daniel has been in this space for decades: we'll talk about why, for his PhD, he studied bumblebee brains (yes, really — and it's deeply relevant). We get into: His unified theory of consciousness — his "color wheel" model — and why he thinks consciousness only exists in motion Why he believes large language models are ultimately a dead end — and what neuromorphic computing could replace them with What bumblebee brains can teach us about building AI that's up to a thousand times more energy efficient Why he calls today's AI agents "intoxicated graduates" — and says companies should spend 80% of their time testing them The concept of "mind crime" — the idea that we could build conscious AI and accidentally put it through horrendous suffering without realizing it His vision of a "protopia" — where AI makes food, healthcare, education, and energy so abundant that people are freed from economic constraints to pursue what actually mattersWe future around and find out a lot in this one! ---Chapters(01:39) - "Would a conscious superintelligence be safer than a zombie one?" (03:37) - The paperclip problem is not hypothetical (05:06) - Conscium's mission — AI safety for humans and for AI themselves (08:50) - "I think I've got my head around consciousness" (11:57) - The color wheel model — why consciousness only exists in motion (13:58) - Teaching AI morals through evolution, not guardrails (17:23) - "Hey Claude, are you conscious?" — how do you test for that? (21:07) - What bumblebee brains can teach us about building better AI (24:14) - "I think we are completely scaling wrong" (29:43) - Why Daniel calls AI agents "intoxicated graduates" (32:48) - Companies should spend 80% of their time testing agents (38:19) - "What would you do if you were economically free?" ---LinksConsciumDaniel Hulme on Wikipedia Daniel on LinkedIn---

So how do Kwaku's kids know that it's FAFO Friday? "They're like, 'oh, we know you're doing the podcast 'cause we just hear you cackling through the walls.'"So laugh along with Kwaku and me today as we work our way through a quick victory lap (stuff we said would happen last week happened!), why Sam is like that desperate guy at the bar who refuses to go home alone, quantum computing explained via children's literature, why the Jetsons are not reason enough for us to build humanoid robots, robot choreography (are we human or are we dancers?), wen self-driving cars in NY?, riding a wave of green lights up Manhattan's third avenue at 2 AM, artificial wombs and other moonshot off-shoots, and the real origin of Velcro (AI lied to me about it).Plus... goat ranches, breakfast tacos, and what we're most excited about heading into SXSW. It's a choose your own adventure kind of day.Chapters(01:24) - Victory Lap — We Called It (03:35) - OpenAI's Bar Guy Energy (06:38) - Waymo, Robot Choreography, and Green Light Waves (10:16) - Self-Driving Cars vs. New York Politicians (13:13) - What We're Most Excited About at SXSW (15:41) - Quantum Computing: Choose Your Own Adventure Edition (18:01) - Dire Wolves, Moonshots, and Tech Nobody Sees Coming (24:07) - Why Do Robots Need to Look Like Us? (29:22) - The SXSW Way-Back Machine (36:08) - Increased Regulation: Past, Present, or Future? Support Future Around & Find OutFollow Dan on LinkedInGet the free Future Around & Find Out newsletterBecome a paid subscriber and help future proof the podcast!Sponsor the show? Are you looking to reach an audience of senior technologists and decision-makers? Email me: dan@modernproductminds.com---Music by Jonathan Zalben

So, there are dire wolves living on Earth again. They were “de-extincted” by Colossal Biosciences. And today on the show their Chief Science Officer joins me to share her view on why the de-extinction matters — not as a science project, but because it will help solve problems that threaten every species on earth, including us. Beth Shapiro is the Chief Science Officer at Colossal Biosciences, and she helped to bring back the dire wolf or, as others call it, a gray wolf with 20 genetic edits. There is a fierce debate about what de-extinction even means, and we discuss that, but whatever you call them, there are now three big wolves living in an undisclosed location and they wouldn't be there if not for the DNA that Beth and her team edited. Colossal is also working to bring back the wooly mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger, the dodo and other animals that have long been extinct. Why? Listen to find out… Chapters:(01:19) - The Most Oprah Question Beth's Ever Been Asked (03:04) - Moonshots Require You to Create a Giant List of Problems (04:19) - The Things We'll Solve Along the Way, a la the Original Moonshot… to the Moon (05:57) - Beth's Journey: From Broadcast Journalism to Ancient DNA (09:13) - How a Sediment Core Solved a Mammoth Mystery (11:36) - Why Charismatic Animals Matter (a.k.a. Why Riz Is Everything) (12:38) - What's Up With Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi? (14:19) - But Are They Really “Dire Wolves”? The Controversy Over 20 Genetic Edits (21:45) - Should We Do This? Beth's Ethics Framework for Builders (23:51) - Advice for Moonshot Builders (25:10) - Why We Want Dodos, Mammoths, and Thylacines Back Links & Resources:Colossal BiosciencesBeth ShapiroPopTech -- a conference I love!  Support Future Around & Find OutFollow Dan on LinkedInGet the free Future Around & Find Out newsletterBecome a paid subscriber and help future proof the podcast!Sponsor the show? Are you looking to reach an audience of senior technologists and decision-makers? Email me: dan@modernproductminds.com---Music by Jonathan Zalben

Murderbots, mass layoffs, and media takeovers — all in one news cycle. Anthropic told the Pentagon "we will not accede." Block cut half its workforce overnight. And the Paramount-Warner Brothers deal raises real questions about who's running the media now.Also, thanks to Nicolás Maduro's fashion sense, Dan's 13-year-old is being called Lil Tator at school and honestly? The kids are all right. Happy FAFO Friday!Here's some of what Kwaku Aning and I get into:(00:00) - Three Stories Broke Last Night (03:16) - Anthropic Tells the Pentagon No (06:24) - Murder Bots, But Human in the Loop (07:00) - The Pentagon's Friday Deadline (09:28) - Why This Is a Huge Win for Anthropic (10:50) - The War for AI Talent (12:57) - Is the Administration Losing Steam? (15:05) - The Paramount-Warner Brothers Deal (17:36) - Who Controls the Media Now? (21:13) - CNN, Independent Media, and the Employee Perspective (23:55) - Block Lays Off 4,000 People (24:14) - The Citrini Research Fiction That Tanked Stocks (27:49) - AI Washing and the Real Reason for Layoffs (30:11) - Will Vibe Coding Replace Real Companies? (33:27) - Mid-Roll Break (34:41) - Past, Present, Future: State-Controlled AI (35:18) - Past, Present, Future: Independent Media (38:03) - — SLAPP Lawsuits and Creator Protections (40:23) - — Past, Present, Future: Knicks Championship (41:44) - — Come See Us at South by Southwest!

Of all the industries AI will transform, Kira Radinsky believes chemistry and biology will change the most. Kira is the co-founder and CTO of Diagnostic Robotics, which uses AI to automate the administrative work that's crushing healthcare teams — so clinicians can actually focus on patients. She's also the co-founder of Mana.bio, where they're accelerating drug discovery by orders of magnitude.She'll tell you she's terrible in the lab. Not because she isn't brilliant, but because she can't pipette without killing the cells. So she's thrilled that thanks to her skills in data and AI she was able to realize her childhood dream of being a scientist: “I'm not trying to automate everything… Like when, when you say automate drug discovery, I'm not gonna discover everything. I just want to accelerate it, which comes back to my childhood dream: I just didn't want to do it myself. I just want AI to replace me as a scientist. That's it.”But this episode is about more than healthcare. It's about how to build systems that get smarter over time — feedback loops, causal inference, incentivizing algorithms to take risks, and knowing when to optimize for ROI instead of accuracy. Lessons that apply whether you're building in biotech or not.We cover:How growing up Jewish in Soviet Ukraine — and fleeing to Israel just before the Gulf War — shaped Kira's obsession with predicting the futureHow she built a system that successfully predicted real-world events, including Cuba's first cholera outbreak in Cuba in 130 yearsHow Mana.bio is using AI to build "rocketships" that deliver drugs to the right cells — and how they've done in three months what used to take 20 yearsWhy predictions are only valuable if there's something you can do about them — and why that makes healthcare an ideal field for AI How to incentivize algorithms to make bolder predictions (it's easy to predict there won't be an earthquake today; it's much harder to say there will be)Why causal inference is the most underrated tool in machine learning right nowHow healthcare AI can perpetuate racial bias — and what builders need to do differentlyNote: this interview originally aired in October 2024. Chapters:(01:44) - Why predictions are so important to Kira: lessons from fleeing Soviet-era Kyiv (05:10) - Building a prediction engine from 150 years of news (08:35) - How Kira predicted the Cuba cholera outbreak (09:50) - Returning to biology by way of data (12:50) - Predicting healthcare outcomes by finding your patient's twin (17:53) - The racial bias hiding in healthcare AI (19:15) - Building Mana.bio and accelerating drug discovery (24:33) - "In three months, what did what used to take 20 years" (31:44) - Builder tips: ROI, causal inference, and teaching algorithms to explore (35:07) - Planning: Where generative AI needs improve Links & Resources:Kira Radinsky on LinkedInDiagnostic RoboticsMana.bioSupport Future Around & Find OutGet the free newsletterAnd consider becoming a paid subscriber and help future proof this thing!Sponsor the show? Are you looking to reach an audience of senior technologists and decision-makers? Email me: dan@modernproductminds.com---Music by Jonathan Zalben

You probably know by now that AI is the definition of mediocre. As in: it's the average of everything it's been trained on. So how do you get beyond average? How do you build a moat? It certainly doesn't seem to be via the models. While there are models of the month (hey, Opus 4.6, my new friend!), they seem to be pretty swappable. So, the model ain't it. But proprietary data (e.g. an AI that knows you really well), yes! Or doing something really hard in the real world (think: Waymo self-driving cars). Maybe via trust and safety (Anthropic is certainly making a play here). Or... how about via amazing design and good taste. Remember when ChatGPT first came out and everyone derided “AI wrappers”… well, maybe a wrapper isn't so bad, assuming you can differentiate on one or more of the above. Luke Des Cotes is the CEO of MetaLab, the agency famous for designing interfaces, including early versions of Slack and Coinbase, so don't be shocked when you hear him say that great design can be your moat. MetaLab is working with a host of AI companies (another shocker), including Windsurf (AI + code), Suno (AI + music), Pika (AI + video), and more…, which is why Luke's take on AI surprised me. He's not rah rah. He's pretty judicious actually. Luke has questions about AI's costs and appropriateness for lots of use cases like those involving kids, but mostly he objects to its mediocrity.On this episode we discuss what it takes to go beyond.We also get into:Why vibe-coded software isn't changing the world anytime soonWhy Shopify acquired a design agency right after telling employees to justify their existence against AIHow MetaLab designers are using AI to prototype in hours instead of weeksThe talent market for zero-to-one designers — and why they're harder to find than everLandlines, brick phones, and how parents are fighting back against always-on kidsChapters(01:10) - "It's a race to the mean" (03:10) - "How do you create emotional resonance?" (05:33) - AI companies are burning money (08:44) - Speed to good enough (13:51) - Is the chat here to stay or a temporary fad? (17:43) - It's hard to find great 0 to 1 design talent (22:28) - Seemingly conscious AI (25:05) - Kids, landlines, and fighting always-on culture (27:21) - Sounds like science fiction, but is here now… Links & ResourcesLuke Des Cotes on LinkedInMetaLabSupport Future Around & Find OutGet the free newsletterAnd consider becoming a paid subscriber and help future proof this thing!Sponsor the show? Are you looking to reach an audience of senior technologists and decision-makers? Email me: dan@modernproductminds.com

Henrik Werdelin is one of my favorite entrepreneurs. He's founded and incubated several unicorns, most notably BARK, the dog happiness company.Henrik himself is a pretty happy guy — an optimistic guy who likes to ask what could go right? — and on the day we recorded (a few months ago as I was squirreling away interviews for the podcast relaunch), he helped me see through some future of tech gloom I was feeling. I honestly can't even remember what Trump+tech hellscape we were living through that week, but I do remember that Henrik put me in a better mood. I think he'll do the same for you, no matter how you're feeling.

Is AI conscious? Will it be someday? And should we be nice to it now... just in case?This FAFO Friday, Kwaku and I dive into the mind-bending world of machine consciousness.We cover a lot of ground, weaving from the different ways that Luke (co-dependent with R2) and Han (barking commands at C-3PO) treat their droids to whether Pascal's Wager informs whether we should believe in AI consciousness just in case they do come alive and have been keeping score. (Pascal figured it was the safe bet to believe in God, just in case; maybe we should do likewise?) That's from us knuckleheads, but we've also got a true expert on consciousness. This week I interviewed Daniel Hulme, one of the world's leading AI researchers. He's the Chief AI Officer at WPP, the CEO of Satalia (which WPP bought) and just founded and is CEO of Conscium, which is researching AI consciousness, efficiency (he thinks we're scaling wrong and LLM's are not the way), and building a platform to verify AI agents are safe. You'll hear the first five minutes of my interview with Daniel. Daniel was not surprised by Moltbook (the Reddit-style site that AI agents built for themselves). That's because he's been putting agents together (in a “primordial soup” as he put it) for decades to observe the wild and wonderful ways they behave and to see if they'd create intelligence.Daniel does not think today's agents are conscious, but can see a path to it. And he believes that a conscious superintellignece would be safer than a “zombie” one. But mostly he doesn't want machines to feel pain and suffer. Huh???My brain is still kind of broken from our hourlong chat, which I'm producing now and will be released in a few weeks. For now, enjoy this preview and more from Kwaku and me as we talk about what we expect from machines, whether we want to be one with them, and more…

Everyone's feeling jumpy about AI right now—and for good reason.The hype has been massive. The investment has been astronomical. But where's the actual return?In this episode, Azeem Azhar, founder of Exponential View and advisor to tech leaders and governments, breaks down why the next 18 months are make-or-break for AI. Companies need to prove there's real ROI, not just prototypes launched and tokens spent.We cover:What hard evidence would actually prove AI is working (hint: it's not usage metrics)Who can build a real moat with AI—and why the winners will likely come from unexpected places, as they have in previous tech transformationsThe physical constraints nobody wants to talk about: chips, data centers, power grids, and whether America's infrastructure is up to the taskWhy OpenAI's "ubiquity strategy" might be spreading too thin (and what Anthropic is doing differently)The "pragmatic addicts" problem: we're dependent on AI even though we don't trust itHow Azeem and his team use AI to be more productive, how they automate whatever they can, and why individual contributors are acting more like managers (of AI)Note: This interview was recorded months before the "SaaSpacolypse" (big market drop) of Feb 2026; the analysis is as relevant as ever. Chapters(01:51) - Why the next 18 months are the crucible for AI (04:09) - What hard evidence would actually prove AI ROI (not token counts!) (06:55) - Why it's so hard to measure AI's real impact (09:55) - Who can build a moat with AI? Winners will be in "odd places" (12:56) - Structural data advantages: why Waymo's edge is hard to replicate (14:34) - Coding agents and whether developers will become disillusioned with them (18:21) - Physical constraints: chips, data centers, power, and America's grid problem (21:25) - How the Gulf countries became an unexpected AI hub (28:02) - "Pragmatic addicts": why 75% of Americans distrust AI but use it anyway (31:45) - The narrative of AI can be very unappealing: heaven on Earth or dystopia (34:36) - How Azeem's team uses AI: augmentation vs. automation (40:06) - What should we be talking about besides AI? (43:46) - Sounds like science fiction: What Azeem can't believe is real and here today Links & Resources:Exponential View: https://www.exponentialview.co/Azeem's Boom or Bubble dashboard: https://boomorbubble.ai/Azeem's New York Times piece on America's electric grid challenge: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/28/opinion/ai-electricity-power-plants.htmlMore on the “MIT Study” claiming 95% of AI projects fail that Azeem and I both found to be really poorly done, but that is nonetheless is quoted by everyone: Here's Azeem tearing the study apart with data: https://www.exponentialview.co/p/how-95-escaped-into-the-worldAnd here's me riffing with Kwaku Aning on it. You know why Azeem liked my take? Because I actually read the thing, unlike ~95% of the writers out there who just quoted that 95% number: https://www.futurearound.com/p/did-anyone-actually-read-that-mit-ai-study-that-made-the-markets-swoon-i-didSupport Future Around & Find OutGet the newsletter: https://www.futurearound.comBecome a paid subscriber and help future proof this thing!: https://www.futurearound.comSponsor the show? Are you looking to reach an audience of senior technologists and decision-makers? Email me: dan@modernproductminds.com

Welcome to the first FAFO Friday!This week Dan and Kwaku dig into:- The uncanny valley that is AI agents and Moltbook—the "Reddit" that agents built for themselves to complain about humans, create a religion, and behave in ways that freak humans out- Anthropic takes aim at OpenAI with a Super Bowl ad that's spicy (for cubs and cougars alike)- We read Claude's "Constitution" and ask: Should AI do what you ask it to do—or what it thinks you _really_ want long-term?- Why Dan switched from OpenAI to Claude (and what he learned about tone, capability, and custom projects)- OpenAI scrambles; the market stumbles; Jensen Huang acts like Sam Altman is "just someone I used to know"- How AEO (AI Engine Optimization) becomes critical in an AI-agent world—and what that means for brand, marketing, and search- Why social media is already past (dark social won)- Elon's pivot to humanoid robots, data centers in space, and other cool things we definitely need- Are we setting higher ethical standards for machines than for tech leaders?Plus: Friendster, TiVo, Pee-wee's Playhouse, and other asides that we hope you get, but maybe you won't ¯_(ツ)_/¯---Support Future Around & Find Out- Subscribe to the newsletter and support: https://www.futurearound.com- Support the media — support the future — you hope to see. Please consider a paid subscription to Future Around & Find Out. You'll also get access to exclusive events and the ability to ask questions of upcoming guests. Learn more: https://www.futurearound.com/upgrade

Baratunde Thurston wants us to live well with machines — not for us live under them, nor to be their almighty overlords. Baratunde is a technologist, a comedian, and an Emmy-nominated storyteller who explores interdependence. He gets spicy in this episode. The host of Life With Machines explores how he uses AI — without succumbing to its literal mediocrity — and why he feels he must use AI because otherwise he's ceding the future to big tech. He also digs into the compromises made in service of building AGI, why strongmen are actually weak, and why CEOs need to stop bending the knee and learn how collective power and strength actually work.But he doesn't just critique—he offers builders a concrete path forward for how we can build a better future , because: "If we build these systems in a good way, there'll be more for everybody, more freedom for everybody and more money for everybody. I do believe that that is possible, but if we do this the wrong way, most of us are gonna suffer and a handful will enjoy their riches in a very secure compound."This episode is a banger. You will be inspired to take action!Chapters:(02:00) - “I don't want to live under machines… I also don't want to be like master of the machine” (06:25) - Creating good goals for AI systems and products (09:00) - “Nothing about us without us” – principles of community-based action (11:10) - How Baratunde stays creative and avoids mediocrity when using AI (14:10) - Building BLAIR, Baratunde's AI “co-host” and “producer” on Life With Machines (16:50) - “You know nothing, John Snow.” Generative AI systems are not knowledge repositories! (20:00) - Practice what you preach: on Mustafa Suleyman (Microsoft AI CEO) and his warning against building “Seemingly Conscious AI” (24:26) - The AI funding shell game (25:26) - Racing to AGI and the compromises (trust & safety, copyright, etc…) along the way (28:56) - How Baratunde reconciles his unease with his own heavy use of AI (32:10) - “Comedy will not save us; we will save us.” On the role of comedy vs. authority / authoritarians (36:26) - Bending the knee: why Baratunde says tech CEOs need to learn how collective power works (38:26) - What builders — what we! — can do (today!) to exercise our power about how these systems will be built (40:26) - “If we build these systems in a good way, there'll be more for everybody…” Where to find Baratunde Thurston:Life with Machines: https://www.lifewithmachines.media/Support Future Around & Find OutSubscribe to the newsletter and support: https://www.futurearound.comSupport the media — support the future — you hope to see. Please consider a paid subscription to Future Around & Find Out. You'll also get access to exclusive events and the ability to ask questions of upcoming guests. Learn more: https://www.futurearound.com/upgrade Sponsor the show?Interested in reaching an audience of senior technologists and decision-makers and aligning with future-forward content? Let's talk! Please email show host Dan Blumberg: dan@modernproductminds.com---Music by Jonathan Zalben

You know what would be awesome? If we could build the future we want — before we muck it up.Future Around & Find Out helps builders think clearly about AI and emerging technologies, grapple with the implications, and decide what to build next.Independent technologist and former NPR journalist Dan Blumberg speaks with founders, makers, and you to celebrate breakthroughs, call BS on the hype, explore how things might go sideways — and how we can steer the future in the right direction.The Webby Awards have honored the show (formerly known as CRAFTED.) as a top tech podcast three years in a row! On Tuesdays, we feature interviews with the builders changing how we work, live, and play. On FAFO Fridays, futurist Kwaku Aning joins Dan for a playful recap of the week in tech, including the amazing, the scary, and the strange.You'll also hear about innovations that too often get overshadowed by AI, including in deep tech, biotech, fintech, quantum computing, robotics, blockchain, and more.Across it all, you'll hear sharp takes on what comes next and what builders need to know now. So let's Future Around & Find Out together! FutureAround.com(Music by Jonathan Zalben)

Here's the full text of this short episode:Hey everyone, Dan here with a quick, exciting update on this show... the name is about to change! In a few days -- on January 20th --  you'll see that this podcast will have new cover art, a new name, a new trailer, and more...I'm not going to reveal that name today, but I do want to share a bit of why I'm changing the name of a show that's been honored 3 years straight by the Webby Awards -- and what is NOT changing.OK, so there are three main reasons for the name change:- the first is very practical: "crafted" is really hard to find in search. I've literally stood next to people who are looking to subscribe and they can't find the show. I swear this wasn't the case when we launched 3yrs ago, but today there are several shows that are either called crafted or something close to it. - the second reason is more personal: the show is mine now -- that wasn't always the case. You may recall the show launched when I was with a high craft software consultancy doing product and client work. The podcast was a surprise! When I left and got full ownership of the show I didn't want to change too many things all at once. Also, I like the name crafted, but -- and this leads to the *real* reason I'm changing --- it no longer fits the show.- crafted is a past tense verb. and it perfectly described the original incarnation of this show, where founders, makers, and innovators would look *back* on things they'd built and we'd do a sort of case study that would help other builders learn from their mistakes and understand how that great product or company they built got so great...So here's the thing... I'm not really doing that sort of case study thing anymore. And I haven't for a while. Creating explicitly educational content is not favorite thing. I'm not exactly a "here is a framework" kind of guy. There are other people who LOVE to create that sort of content and they do a great job with it. So I've been following my interests... For a while now, this show has been much less concerned with teaching case studies and much interested in what comes *next.* * What are the implications of new tech? * How will AI change how we live, work, play, teach our kids...? * Should we get ready to live with humanoid robots? * How are stablecoins changing the world of money? * And what about quantum computers? And what do builders need to know about these things so that we can build a future we actually want? See that part is not changing... the show is still for builders. And you can take that literally: as in people who make software. Or if you want you can take it a bit more broadly: as in: people who putting in the work to build a better future.Sorry if that's a bit cheesy, but it's true. Because while I'm optimistic that we will build an amazing future, there is... uh... a lot going on right now in tech and in the world. And I believe that, together, we have power to steer the future in the right direction. This show will still feature the world's top technologists. And we're going to get into all of these future-forward things. Of course, we'll talk about things they've done in the past, because if we don't learn from history... well, you know how that expression goes. So, get ready to see some new art and a new name -- I'll give you a hint, it'll have the word future in it -- on Tuesday. And I would love your help spreading the word. When the new trailer and website drop, please share them with all your builder friends. So stay tuned...

Travel is one of the most demo-friendly use cases for AI — and one of the hardest industries to actually disrupt.Every AI launch seems to promise the same thing: “Tell me where you want to go, and I'll plan everything.” But behind the slick demos sits a deeply consolidated industry dominated by platforms, hotel chains, and airlines that optimize for upsell and extraction.Rafat Ali is the founder and CEO of Skift, which bills itself as “the daily homepage for the global travel industry.” We discuss whether AI is likely to have a traveler-friendly effect — or whether the big platforms will just use these new tools of hyper-personalization to extract even more from us. We cover: Whether AI creates new intermediaries—or just strengthens existing giantsWhy no breakout consumer AI travel startup has emerged (yet)Where AI does work in travel today: ops, logistics, and B2B automationWhy travel is a graveyard for “great UX, bad business” startups (RIP HipmunkRafat's dad hacks for traveling with three kids---Featured voices:Rafat Ali — Founder and CEO of SkiftMe (Dan Blumberg) — I'm the host of CRAFTED. and the founder of Modern Product Minds. HMU if you want to build something great! I love building from zero to one.---And if you please…Share with a friend! Word of mouth is by far the most powerful way for podcasts to growSubscribe to the CRAFTED. newsletter at crafted.fmShare your feedback! I'm experimenting with new episode formats and would love your honest feedback on this and other episodes. Email me: dan@modernproductminds.com or DM me on LinkedInSponsor the show? I'm actively speaking to potential sponsors. Drop me a line and let's talk.Get psyched!… There are some big updates to this show coming soon!

This week I'm turning the mic over to podcast friends Mike Masnick and Ben Whitelaw, hosts of Ctrl-Alt-Speech, a show about what happens when we talk on the internet, the messy world of content moderation, trust & safety, and the laws trying (and often failing) to keep up.In their first episode of the new year, they build a 2026 bingo card of things that might happen across AI, regulation, and online speech. Not predictions exactly — more a way to follow along and yell “BINGO” as we stumble into another year of deepfakes, age verification fights, and calls to repeal Section 230.You can find links to Ctrl-Alt-Speech on all podcast apps here: https://www.ctrlaltspeech.com/And this — for now — name change coming soon! — is CRAFTED. Sign up for the newsletter and stay tuned at https://www.crafted.fmThe new name and the reasons why are coming in about a week. 

Happy New Year! This is the time of year when people make big changes. So, I'm bringing back my conversation with the co-author of Tomorrowmind. It's a fascinating book and especially relevant at this time of the year. Dr. Gabriella Rosen Kellerman writes that that career trajectories used to be like steamships (full steam ahead), and then they became more like sailboats (lots of tacking), but now we're swirling in whitewater. So how can we stay afloat? How can we flourish? “When you're kayaking in the whitewater. It's hard to get a sense of what could be around the bend, but if you know if what's coming up is a sudden cascade or versus another, you know, set of gentle bumps, or maybe it's a calmer space in the river, it can give you a great advantage.”On this episode of CRAFTED., we focus on PRISM, the five key skill groups that Gabriella says can help you be more successful: Prospection, Resilience, Innovation and creativity, Social support by way of rapid rapport, and Mattering and meaning. Gabriella was until recently the Chief Product Officer at BetterUp, a platform that helps organizations and people level up through a mixture of human and AI coaching. She originally appeared on the show in a two-part episode. Part one is includes more on the tomorrowmind skills and her career path; in part two, she describes how BetterUp builds products and innovated under her leadership. And stay tuned as we employ our own tomorrowminds here at CRAFTED... there are some big changes to the show, including a new name, coming this month!---Featured voices:Dr. Gabriella Rosen Kellerman, Partner at BCG, former CPO of BetterUp, and co-author, with Martin Seligman, of Tomorrowmind Me (Dan Blumberg) — I'm the host of CRAFTED. and the founder of Modern Product Minds. HMU if you want to build something great! I love building from zero to one.---And if you please…Share with a friend! Word of mouth is by far the most powerful way for podcasts to growSubscribe to the CRAFTED. newsletter at crafted.fmShare your feedback! I'm experimenting with new episode formats and would love your honest feedback on this and other episodes. Email me: dan@modernproductminds.com or DM me on LinkedInSponsor the show? I'm actively speaking to potential sponsors for 2026 episodes. Drop me a line and let's talk.Get psyched!… There are some big updates to this show coming soon!

A guest episode from Famous & Gravy. On each episode, host Michael Osborne and guests look at the life of a famous dead celebrity and ask themselves if it's a life they would've wanted. The show gets into all sorts of things you will not in that person's official obituary or biography. I'm a fan. Here's how they describe today's episode:This person died 2011, age of 56. He dropped out of Reed College in 1972 and once said that taking LSD was among the most important things he ever did. In the early years of his career, his obsession with detail drove colleagues crazy, but later he inspired extraordinary loyalty. In the 1990s he bought a small computer graphics spinoff from George Lucas and built it into Pixar. He told the world he would step down as Apple's CEO if he could no longer meet expectations — and then he did. Today's dead celebrity is Steve Jobs.Subscribe to Famous & Gravy in all your favorite podcast apps and at famousandgravy.com---And if you please…Subscribe to the CRAFTED. newsletter: crafted.fmShare with a friend! Word of mouth is by far the most powerful way for podcasts to growSponsor the show? I'm actively speaking to potential sponsors for 2026 episodes. Drop me a line and let's talk.Get psyched!… There are some big updates to this show coming in January

This week I'm the guest and my friends at Whiskey Web and Whatnot are the hosts. And they're great hosts, because they send their guests a bottle of whiskey before talking web and whatnot...As we head into the holidays I hope you'll raise a glass with us and enjoy this very laid back episode... Chuck and Robbie hosted me a year ago and I love that they got me on tape when they did, because it was just as I was starting to consider making some big changes to my show... Changes that I will announce in late January... so get excited for that! and please subscribe to this here podcsat in your favorite apps, and get the newsletter at crafted.fmHere's how they described the episode:Robbie and Chuck talk with Dan Blumberg about his journey from radio producer to product manager and podcaster. They explore the art of building great software, podcasting essentials, and the changing landscape of podcast platforms. Plus, Dan shares his kayaking adventures and insights on balancing authenticity and growth.And if you please…Subscribe to the CRAFTED. newsletter atcrafted.fmShare with a friend! Word of mouth is by far the most powerful way for podcasts to growSponsor the show? I'm actively speaking to potential sponsors for 2026 episodes. Drop me a line and let's talk.Get psyched!… There are some big updates to this show coming soonFor more on Whiskey Web and Whatnot...Check ou:t https://whiskey.fmConnect with Robbie Wagner: https://x.com/RobbieTheWagnerConnect with Chuck Carpenter: https://x.com/CharlesWthe3rd In this episode:- (00:00) - Intro- (03:26) - Whiskey review and rating: Woodinville Straight Bourbon- (09:23) - Apple Podcasts vs Spotify- (11:20) - Spotify video vs YouTube- (13:02) - Podcasting audio vs video- (15:24) - Advice on starting a podcast- (19:24) - Equipment requirements for guests on podcasts- (22:15) - Having a pre-interview interview- (26:06) - Social media and podcasting challenges- (27:37) - How to grow your audience- (33:18) - How to make money as a podcaster- (37:28) - Being yourself vs having a persona- (38:42) - Monetizing your podcast- (42:11) - What's missing from RSS- (43:38) - Dan's non-tech career ideas- (45:40) - Podcast recommendations- (49:12) - Dan's plugsLinks- Woodinville Straight Bourbon: https://woodinvillewhiskeyco.com/- Crafted: https://crafted.fm- WNYC: https://www.wnyc.org/- NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/- Spotify: https://www.spotify.com/- Pocket Casts: https://pocketcasts.com/- IAB: https://www.iab.com/- National Geographic: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/- Shure SM7B: https://www.shure.com/en-US/products/microphones/sm7b- Focusrite: https://focusrite.com/- Shure MV7: https://www.shure.com/en-US/products/microphones/mv7- Elgato: https://www.elgato.com/- AirPods: https://www.apple.com/airpods/- Audio Technica: https://www.audio-technica.com/en-us/- Morning Edition: https://www.wnyc.org/shows/me- Chicago Public Radio: https://www.wbez.org/- Riverside: https://riverside.fm/- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/- Mr. Beast: https://youtube.com/@mrbeast- Docker: https://www.docker.com/- Artium: https://www.thisisartium.com/- Jay Clouse: https://creatorscience.com/- Hark: https://harkaudio.com/- Syntax: https://syntax.fm/- Hard Fork: https://www.nytimes.com/column/hard-fork- Big Technology with Alex Kantrowitz: https://www.bigtechnology.com/- Decoder with Nilay Patel: https://www.theverge.com/decoder- How I Built This: https://www.npr.org/series/490248027/how-i-built-this- Acquired: https://www.acquired.fm/- Smartless: https://smartless.com/- Wondery: https://wondery.com/- Sacha Baron Cohen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacha_Baron_Cohen- Tim Burton: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Burton- Beetlejuice: https://www.warnerbros.com/movies/beetlejuice- Darknet Diaries: https://darknetdiaries.com/

Looking to fund your startup? If you're new to the process, fundraising can be difficult to navigate. Not only are there a myriad of ways to go about it, but it can be hard to tell whether the tips, tricks, and advice floating around are based on any evidence at all.[This week, I'm turning the mic over to my friends at The Startup Podcast. featuring Carta's head of insights on what you need to know about today's fundraising environment and how AI is affecting valuations, equity, and how companies grow. Here's how they describe this episode...]So, what is the truth?And what are the actual, data-backed insights that can help you choose the best method of fundraising for your own business?Enter: Peter Walker.As Head of Insights at Carta, he has access to, and industry knowledge about, the vast sets of funding data that will help you cut through the noise. Today, he joins Chris and Yaniv in discussing the real data behind startup funding trends in 2025 and the key takeaways you can apply to your own startups.In this episode, you will:Discover why Silicon Valley valuations often hurt founders more than they helpUnderstand how AI startups now account for nearly half of all venture funding, and what that means for non-AI foundersLearn how lean AI-driven teams are reshaping early-stage hiring, with Series A companies shrinking from 25 employees to just 15See why most founders misunderstand SAFE notesExplore why 70% of startup employees never exercise their equityUncover the reasons behind why nearly 40% of startups lose a co-founder within seven yearsGet clarity on founder vesting, equity splits, and why a six-year vesting schedule may protect your company better than fourReframe your goals as a founder: why chasing “life-changing money” isn't the right reason to start a company---Featured voices:Peter Walker - Head of Insights at CartaYaniv Bernstein - Co-host of The Startup PodcastChris Saad - Co-host of The Startup PodcastMe (Dan Blumberg) — I'm the host of CRAFTED. and the founder of Modern Product Minds. HMU if you want to build something great. I love building from zero to one.---And if you please…TAKE THE SURVEY: It'll just take five minutes and I'll give $100 to the charity of choice for one lucky respondentShare with a friend! Word of mouth is by far the most powerful way for podcasts to growSubscribe to the CRAFTED. newsletter at crafted.fmShare your feedback! I'm experimenting with new episode formats and would love your honest feedback on this and other episodes. Email me: dan@modernproductminds.com or DM me on LinkedInSponsor the show? I'm actively speaking to potential sponsors for 2026 episodes. Drop me a line and let's talk.Get psyched!… There are some big updates to this show coming soon!

“So if you take any great startup and look backwards, you'll see that 90 percent of their growth came from like 10 percent of the stuff that they tried. So how do you find that 10 percent as quickly as possible?”Matt Lerner has advised hundreds of startups on how to grow. Now, the CEO of SYSTM has written a book called Growth Levers and How to Find Them where he shares his approach. This episode of CRAFTED. is full of actionable advice on how you can grow your products and companies. Matt will tell us about the mindset shift founders need to make from thinking about their products to thinking about their customers needs. We'll talk about jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) style interviewing and why it's such a powerful approach, but also why at first Matt was put off by some of the overly academic language that often goes with jobs. And we'll talk about how you can get new customers to that aha moment as quickly as possible, so they stick with your product. Plus, lots of real talk about founders and the mistakes they make. ---Featured voices:Matt Lerner (Founder and CEO of SYSTM; the book is Growth Levers and How to Find Them)Me (Dan Blumberg) — I'm the host of CRAFTED. and the founder of Modern Product Minds. HMU if you want to build something great. I love building from zero to one.---And if you please…TAKE THE SURVEY: It'll just take five minutes and these surveys are actually really important for podcasters. Share with a friend! Word of mouth is by far the most powerful way for podcasts to growSubscribe to the CRAFTED. newsletter at crafted.fmShare your feedback! I'm experimenting with new episode formats and would love your honest feedback on this and other episodes. Email me: dan@modernproductminds.com or DM me on LinkedInSponsor the show? I'm actively speaking to potential sponsors for 2026 episodes. Drop me a line and let's talk.Get psyched!… There are some big updates to this show coming soon---Key Moments:(02:10) - 90 percent of growth comes 10 percent of the stuff you try (03:43) - Over-thinkers, under-thinkers, and delegators: the 3 types of founders and the mistakes they make (07:30) - Why the pace of learning is so important (09:41) - Great examples of companies that learn quickly (10:42) - The “locksmith moment” and why you need to find yours (12:35) - Jobs-to-be-Done style interviewing and why it's so effective (13:57) - How to do a JTBD interview (15:05) - The mindset shift founders need to make from thinking about their product to thinking about the customers' needs – and why it's so hard for them to do so (21:14) - Growth Sprints and how to set them up for success (24:57) - Retention and customer activation: still (!) overlooked by most and why it's so critical (28:50) - Matt writes a blog post on the spot about how working at an oil refinery taught him about startups (31:26) - Writing a book is not an agile process! And the fantastic reception for Growth Levers

** I'd be so grateful if you'd take five minutes and answer our annual survey. It'll help me make the show better for you!  **Hey folks, it's Thanksgiving weekend here in the US and it's the time of year when we think about what we're grateful for, so today I'm re-sharing some words from perhaps the most grateful person I've ever had on the show. Kelsey Hightower is a legendary developer. And he has an incredible story. He went from sleeping in his car to becoming a pioneer in the Kubernetes world, a distinguished engineer at Google, and then... he retired. At the age of 42. Because he wanted to have more impact on the world than he thought he could have by advancing up the career ladder. So here are 15 minutes of my original interview with him, because some of the things he said — not about tech, but about humanity, gratitude, and prioritizing what matters — have really stuck with me.Here's the full interview, originally released in July 2024. We cover a lot, including how he became so good at live demos, why emotion is the key to great software — and storytelling — and how it's those “boring innovations” and mindset shifts you need to make as a technologist that will take you from “hello, world” to “hello, revenue.” ---Featured voices:Kelsey Hightower: "Retired, not tired" former distinguished engineer at Google and Kubernetes PioneerMe (Dan Blumberg) — I'm the host of CRAFTED. and the founder of Modern Product Minds. HMU if you want to build something great. I love building from zero to one.---And if you please…TAKE THE SURVEY: It'll just take five minutes and these surveys are actually really important for podcasters. Share with a friend! Word of mouth is by far the most powerful way for podcasts to growSubscribe to the CRAFTED. newsletter at crafted.fmShare your feedback! I'm experimenting with new episode formats and would love your honest feedback on this and other episodes. Email me: dan@modernproductminds.com or DM me on LinkedInSponsor the show? I'm actively speaking to potential sponsors for 2026 episodes. Drop me a line and let's talk.Get psyched!… There are some big updates to this show coming soon

In this special live Web Summit edition from Lisbon, roboticist, investor, and founder Chris Coomes shares how and why he built X1 Pipeline, an AI platform that evaluates startups the way he would — only much, much faster. It's something he wishes he had when looking for early stage robotics startups while at Google and Amazon. We also talk about the strange humanoid robots wandering the convention hall at Web Summit, why "agents" is a vastly overused word and why (his take) most of the agent startups he saw at the conference won't be around next year. Plus, why plugging things in is hard — and why (my take) that's a good thing, because it means we humans will still have jobs (as plumbers and electricians) in the future. Enjoy this fun episode, recorded live from the "Croissant Studio" on the floor at Web Summit in Lisbon. ---  Featured voices:Chris Coomes — Founder of X1 PipelineMe (Dan Blumberg) — I'm the host of CRAFTED. and the founder of Modern Product Minds. HMU if you want to build something great. I love building from zero to one.And if you please…Share with a friend! Word of mouth is by far the most powerful way for podcasts to growSubscribe to the CRAFTED. newsletter at https://crafted.fm/Share your feedback! I'm experimenting with new episode formats and would love your honest feedback on this and other episodes. Email me: dan@modernproductminds.com or DM me on LinkedInSponsor the show? I'm actively speaking to potential sponsors for 2026 episodes. Drop me a line and let's talk.Get psyched!… There are some big updates to this show coming soon!

In this special live Web Summit edition from Lisbon, I sit down with Tom Haworth, founder of D13 AI, to talk about why “good enough” AI might actually be one of the most dangerous places we can get stuck.And you'll hear Tom say it's time for the leaders of vibe coding platforms (e.g. Lovable, Replit, Cursor) to acknowledge that they're great when you need to “demo not memo”, but not great (today and maybe ever) at delivering production-grade, secure code. We also make a few detours as we detail a ridiculous week in Lisbon, including:How (shocker!) 90% of the conference was about AIWhy “good enough” AI is not a good place to beWhether we'll graduate to great AIAI's ROI now and in the futureWhy it's still iffy whether AI agents they can be trusted to accomplish complex jobsRobots wander Web Summit, do the Macarena, fall downHow tennis great Maria Sharapova uses (IBM's) AI How the presumptuous Web Summit's app prominently suggests we all message Maria… (as if!) Visa wants to help creators monetize (yay! it me!), using Web3 technologies (yes, they said “Web3”; no, I was not expecting to hear a non-ironic use of that phrase)Why self-driving cars are the best robots — and coming soon to more of EuropeHow much Web Summit pampers (and corrupts) the media: I was like a stuffed goose. Hurray for Portuguese custard and other delicacies!How even the beer at Web Summit was high tech---Featured voices:Tom Haworth: Founder of D13 AI, a UK-based consultancy that “builds intelligent tools that help businesses make sense of messy data.”Me (Dan Blumberg) — I'm the host of CRAFTED. and the founder of Modern Product Minds. HMU if you want to build something great. I love building from zero to one.---And if you please…Share with a friend! Word of mouth is by far the most powerful way for podcasts to growSubscribe to the CRAFTED. newsletter at crafted.fmShare your feedback! I'm experimenting with new episode formats and would love your honest feedback on this and other episodes. Email me: dan@modernproductminds.com or DM me on LinkedInSponsor the show? I'm actively speaking to potential sponsors for 2026 episodes. Drop me a line and let's talk.Get psyched!… There are some big updates to this show coming soon!

 Hey everyone. I've gotten so much interesting feedback on last week's Halloween episode featuring the anonymous CTO saying spooky things about AI and coding agents that I thought I'd share a quick solo voice memo style episode with you. The feedback ranges from people saying he's spot on about the insidious problems that AI coding agents create while others saying "he's holding it wrong." In other words, he's not using AI properly. Listen to this short episode and you'll also hear reaction to his claim that "adversarial AI" is not really a thing and why context and data are so critical. And please please please: take five minutes and complete our annual survey. I have big plans for the show and some new things I'm working on. So I really want to hear from you. And for one lucky survey taker, I will make a $100 donation to the charity of your choice. Here's the survey. Again: it takes just five minutes and these surveys are actually really important to podcasters and sponsors. Thanks so much!And go to crafted.fm to get the newsletter and see all past episodes, including the Halloween Special with the Anonymous CTO on Spooky AI Things (listen to this first before listening to today's episode)

AI coding assistants promise to write your code, speed up your sprint, and maybe even make engineers obsolete. But what if the people building with them every day see something very different?In this special Halloween edition of CRAFTED. — which also marks the show's third anniversary! — a masked CTO shares what he can't say publicly: that these tools are powerful, but insidious. In his view, coding assistants are great for auto-complete, but they can't do what a human engineer does. He says they're terrible at starting from scratch and will often suggest code that “works in vacuum”, but not in context. And because AI can write so much code, so quickly, it's hard to catch errors. In short, he sees an increase in short term velocity, at the expense of increased defects and an increasing dependency on systems that are untrustworthy. I want to emphasize that this episode features the experience of one very experienced person. There are obviously others who disagree, who say AI coding agents are incredible, so long as they're managed well. However, there are also an increasing number of people questioning the sustainability of coding agents — they're incredibly expensive to run — and also how good they are in the first place.For example Andrej Karpathy, the guy who literally coined the phrase "vibe coding" and was early at OpenAI and Tesla, just said publicly on Dwarkesh Podcast that the path to AI agents is going to be a lot slower than people in the industry think it will be. He said coding agents are "not that good at writing code that's never been written before" and that there is too much hype right now about where AI really is, with people in the industry, quote "trying to pretend like this is amazing, when it's not." And he said: "My Claude Code or Codex still feels like this elementary-grade student." Today's guest agrees with Karpathy on a lot of this. Our guest has worked at startups, scale-ups, and big tech companies you've definitely heard of and today he's at a very AI-forward company and using AI coding tools every day. Enjoy this special episode of CRAFTED.! ---And pretty please...!Share with a friend! Word of mouth is how podcasts grow!Subscribe to the newsletter at https://www.crafted.fmShare your feedback! I'm experimenting with new episode formats and would love your feedback on this and other episodes. DM me on LinkedIn or contact me email, via https://www.crafted.fmSponsor the show? I'm actively speaking to potential sponsors for 2026 episodes. Let's talk!Get psyched!… There are some big updates to the show in 2026!---Key Quotes03:16 The myth of AI replacement: “The idea that AI can actually supplant a software engineer in their current role is basically nonsense.”06:29 Why AI struggles without human input: “If you remove the human engineer from the equation, there's no place to start from. The AI does not do well when you're starting from scratch because it doesn't have the real-world context or the continuous learning required to make that system better.”12:21: The illusion of speed: “Coding assistants help you generate code very quickly. There's an illusion that your velocity increases. What actually happens is you're just shipping more bugs to production.”13:30 More code than humans can review: “AI generates so much code that no human can keep that context in their head and review it in a meaningful way. At some point you just have to trust — but who are you trusting? You're trusting the AI, and the AI cannot be trusted.”14:02 AI & Junior Engineer Hiring: “The narrative that hiring trends have anything to do with AI is absurd. It's not that AI is replacing junior engineers — it's that companies are running lean and don't have the bandwidth to train them.”15:42: Where the AI Bulls and Bears Differ: “Whereas we see flawed systems that aren't ready for primetime [...] they view this as ‘oh, that's, that's insignificant. They will get better almost immediately. It's not a big deal.' But we've been repeating this cycle for years at this point.”19:50 Where AI Excels: “Where review and revise are part of the process already, that's a really good place for generative AI because you already have a human in the loop.”21:02: What builders need to unlearn “To the extent that people think these things are thinking or reasoning or on any path to AGI at all — they should discard that. These models don't think. They're very sophisticated pattern-matching machines, and that's really it.”

Here's a jaunty debrief from PopTech, a notoriously hard conference to describe, that always features obscenely talented entrepreneurs and changemakers.In this episode, Kwaku Aning, Sarah Rose Siskind, and I share some of the great stories and great vibes from this year's conference, including:FetusGPT, Sarah's madcap experiment to train an AI on everything her soon-to-be-born baby is hearing from inside the wombWhy Colossal Biosciences is de-extincting the dire wolf and other “charismatic animals” (dodos and woolly mammoths are in the works) — and why de-extinction is an important goal that will help us solve lots of other problems along the way“Shade-as-a-Service”, a new idea from climate champion, farmer, and entrepreneur Eben Bayer, the founder of MyForest Foods (maker of MyBacon, the top-selling non-meat bacon). The idea is to launch giant parasols into the atmosphere to cool the Earth below.Why Tibet and Taiwan are so key to the tech industry (not to mention global stability); Tibetan PM-in-Exile Lobsang Sangay was a speaker.How to make progress on what matters most to you, featuring a prioritization exercise from Deep Future inventor and investor Pablos HolmanFeatured Voices:Sarah Rose Siskind, science and comedy writer and the founder of Hello SciCom, a STEM communications agencyKwaku Aning, professional connector, founder/principal of RetroFuturism ConsultingDan Blumberg (me!), host of CRAFTED. and the founder of Modern Product Minds. HMU if you want to build something great. I love building from zero to one.And Pretty Please... Share with a friend! Word of mouth is how podcasts grow!Subscribe to the newsletter at crafted.fmShare your feedback! I'm experimenting with new episode formats and would love your feedback on this and other episodes. Email me: dan@modernproductminds.com or DM me on LinkedInSponsor the show? I'm actively speaking to potential sponsors for 2026 episodes. Let's talk! Get psyched!… There are some big updates to the show in 2026!

A quick debrief from Climate Week / UN General Assembly week, including: How seemingly normal everything felt, in spite of [...you know...] everythingAI will destroy the climate?AI will solve climate change? AI will kill us all? (If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies)A call for AI Red LinesThe UN takes action on AIA plea to “stay in the game” (even though it's hard)Joining me from New York are: Kwaku Aning, creates strategic partnerships that drive meaningful changeLendy Krantz, collaboration strategist, helps companies reimagine their operations in physical and virtual environmentsAnd you can join all three of us (hi, I'm your host Dan Blumberg!) from October 7-9th at PopTech in Washington DC. It's a great conference and I'll be interviewing many of the technologists and futurists who will be on stage for future episodes of the podcast. If you'd like a discount code, DM me on LinkedIn or email me: dan@modernproductminds.com 

What's up with “the MIT study” that claims 95% of all AI pilots fail? Did anyone actually read it beyond the headline? (Dan did—and he has thoughts.)Also: the good, the bad, and the quietly dystopian side of putting AI in kids' classrooms.And… are robots really the thing Melania should be worrying about? That's just some of what Kwaku Aning, return guest and founder of Retrofuturism, and I get into on this very lively, very bubbly, and very uncrafted edition of CRAFTED.More new episodes—and a major update to the show—are coming soon. Subscribe in your favorite podcast app and get the newsletter at crafted.fm---Come hang with us at PopTechCome hang with us and see live recordings of CRAFTED., at PopTech! PopTech is a “curator of what's next” and this will be my third time at the conference. I keep going back because I get new ideas, new inspiration, and really get to know the attendees and speakers. This year's talk's include “A possibilist's guide to the future”, “AI: In service to human(ity),” “Vibe coding for human rights” and more. To see the full list of talks and speakers, see PopTech.org and if you've never been before and would like a discount, DM me on LinkedIn or email me: dan@modernproductminds.com ---Referenced in this episode:MIT study on AI profits rattles tech investors (Axios)Full 26-page MIT study (Scribd)AI Is a Money Trap (Ed Zitron)The Fever Dream of Imminent Superintelligence Is Finally Breaking (Gary Marcus in the NYTimes)How Chatbots and AI Are Already Transforming Kids' Classrooms (Bloomberg)Alpha School – the “AI-Powered Private School”Melania Trump Has a Warning for Humanity: ‘The Robots Are Here' (NYTimes)---Like this episode?You'll also like my conversation with Khan Academy's Chief Product & Learning Officer on what happens when AI becomes your tutor—and what it means for the future of learning.

 Software is eating the world, right? We've all heard this phrase by now, but inventor and investor Pablos Holman has something important to add: “The world can't eat software.”That's why Pablos focuses on “deep tech”, i.e. how to invent new solutions to real world problems like energy, water, waste, construction, and sanitation. Pablos says we're still mostly using version 1.0 technology for these fundamental systems, but recent advances, including AI and the ability to prototype and test in software, are enabling incredible innovation in hardware.Pablos has worked with Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and more. He's kind of a mad scientist and in this episode we'll discuss things that sound like science fiction, but that Pablos says are coming soon, such as solar panels in outer space that can beam clean energy down to earth, autonomous cargo ships blown by the wind across the ocean, and tiny nuclear reactors buried a mile underground that power the world above. At Deep Future, Pablos is on a mission to solve the world's biggest problems, and he's hoping more people will make the jump that he did from software to hardware and into deep tech, because, as he says, “ all the people who've been building software their entire career, those are the ones who are going to save the world.”—Chapters02:25 Deep tech and why it's so important05:56 How Pablos became an inventor07:44 Getting Blue Origin off the ground11:35 Running an invention lab at Intellectual Ventures13:40 Why solar panels in space will soon power Earth16:46 Why all problems are energy problems21:33 Better nuclear reactors are coming28:25 How rapid iteration in software enables better hardware31:35 An appeal to software people to get into deep tech — and save the world—Links:Deep Future book, podcast, and firm: deepfuture.techPopTech conference: poptech.org (if you're new to PopTech and would like a discount, email me or DM me on LinkedIn)Sign up for the CRAFTED. newsletter: crafted.fmLearn more about how Modern Product Minds can help you build the future: modernproductminds.comEmail me: dan@modernproductminds.com

As AI models grow larger and more powerful, they promise incredible capabilities — but at what cost? Karen Hao is an AI journalist and her new book, Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI, is a New York Times bestseller. We discuss whether the largest AI models are worth their hefty footprint: They consume massive amounts of electricity and water and Karen argues that smaller models better balance cost vs. benefit. Karen, who has reported for The Atlantic, MIT Technology Review, and the Wall Street Journal, will also provide a view of AI from outside — far outside — Silicon Valley. She's reported on AI from across the Global South and says many there feel that AI is a new form of colonialism.We'll hear about the fight over data centers in Chile, how New Zealand's Maori people are using AI to preserve their indigenous language, and why it's a problem that AI can speak any language, but can only really be policed in a few.(Our interview was first broadcast in October, while Karen was still writing the book, so we do not discuss her deeply sourced reporting from inside OpenAI.)—CRAFTED. is produced by Modern Product Minds, where CRAFTED. host Dan Blumberg and team can help you take a new product from zero to one... and beyond. We specialize in early stage product discovery, growth, and experimentation. Learn more at modernproductminds.com Subscribe to CRAFTED., follow the show, and sign up for the newsletter

AI-generated voices aren't just realistic — they're changing how brands, creators, and agencies bring ideas to life. In this episode, Wondercraft co-founder Oskar Serrander demonstrates how their “Canva for audio” is unlocking rapid prototyping for high-quality audio ads, content, and storytelling.You'll learn:How Wondercraft enables you to go from concept to creative in secondsWhy when AI makes execution easy, ideas and taste matter mostHow brands can test creative faster (and smarter)Why audio is still such an under-leveraged mediumThe surprising future of synthetic voice and what it means for storytellingOskar also shares his take on where generative AI is heading, why sameness is the enemy of brand, and what this all means for the next generation of creators.—Subscribe to the CRAFTED. newsletter

Kevin Smith is building a totally new kind of podcast app. Snipd is an AI-native podcast app and building it required a few mindset shifts. First, what even is a podcast? The way Kevin sees it, podcasts are knowledge. So where most podcast players are, as Kevin calls them, "repurposed music players", Snipd is designed to help you learn. As people listen to episodes, they, or an AI, can save “snips” or interesting moments that they want to remember or share. And the app will also help you review what you've heard, so it reinforces what you've learned.A second mindset shift is how Kevin had to retrain his engineering brain to build with generative AI. He no longer thinks in if-then-else statements. Rather, he asks himself: How would an intern do it? And not just one intern, but infinite interns…I learned a ton from the way Kevin thinks and builds, and you will too. Plus, we discuss the future of podcasting, which looks pretty… weird. You'll talk back to your podcasts, hosts may be synthetic, and shows may not even be designed (at least initially) for human ears.Chapters:(01:30) - Introducing Snipd (03:50) - What led Kevin to found Snipd (06:10) - How AI changes what's possible with podcasts (08:45) - Building with Gen AI requires a mindset shift (11:40) - How would an intern solve this? (12:35) - How podcast listening and podcasting will change with AI (17:35) - Why apps will become your "best friends" (22:00) - Why you may talk back to your podcasts —CRAFTED. listeners can try Snipd, and get a free month of the premium version, here.—Subscribe to the CRAFTED. newsletter

What is a good money habit in 2025? And how do you actually help someone build one—without boring them, shaming them, or losing them in the first five seconds?Chief Product Officer Tim Hong shares how MoneyLion designs for emotion and creates content and products that inspire people to take action. MoneyLion is a personal finance platform used by millions of mostly younger Americans who are just getting started with their money, so, as Tim says: “It's actually less about bad habits that we fight. It's about having no habits.”Tim also shares how AI could create a truly personalized (1 of 1) financial advisor, why most financial apps are “like going to the DMV”, and how things like open banking and embedded finance can change that…—Chapters:(01:30) - Tim has literally measured how short our attentions spans are at a brainwave startup (03:49) - What MoneyLion does and why content and storytelling are so important (08:30) - What even are good money habits today? (12:00) - How MoneyLion uses AI to create personalized content (13:40) - "Talking to your money" with AI (16:30) - How building with GenAI is different (20:30) - Building with non-deterministic systems (24:30) - "Self-driving money": Tim's not so sure people want to fully give up control (29:30) - Why so many financial apps feel like "going to the DMV" — and how that's changing with open banking and embedded finance —Looking for your next episode? Here's another fintech one you might enjoy:“You Have to Invest Into Change.” Startup Lessons from Fintech OG and VC Daniel Kimerling, Founder of Deciens Capital and Standard Treasury —For all CRAFTED. episodes and to subscribe to the CRAFTED. newsletter

Fun news! The Webby Awards have honored CRAFTED. for the third year in a row as a top tech podcast. Thank you — yes, you! — for listening!This episode features the highlight reel we gave the Webbys. It features great moments from 2024 episodes, including (listed in the order mentioned): Powering the World's Hackathons | Brandon Kessler (Founder & CEO, DevPost)Asana's Head of AI on the Profound Ways Work Is Changing | Paige Costello (Head of AI & Co-Head of Product Management at Asana)AI, Creativity, and Soul: How Hilary Mason Chooses Her Own Adventure (Co-Founder & CEO of Hidden Door)“You Have to Invest Into Change.” Startup Lessons from Fintech OG and VC Daniel Kimerling, Founder of Deciens Capital and Standard TreasuryOpen Source Must Evolve for AI and the Next Generation | Nithya Ruff (Head of AWS Open Source Program Office and Chair of the Linux Foundation)Great Software & Storytelling Is Emotional | Kelsey Hightower (Legendary Developer, Kubernetes Pioneer, Former Distinguished Engineer at Google)One Billion Developers! GitHub's Head of Product Says AI Democratizes How We Build the Future | Mario Rodriguez (CPO, Github)Design for Emotion. Leverage AI. Be Curious. | Design Better's Co-founders on Building Great ProductsUsing AI to Launch Thousands of Startups a Year | Henrik Werdelin (Founder of BARK, prehype, Audos)AI and the Future of Medicine | Kira Radinsky (CEO of Diagnostic Robotics and Co-founder of Mana.bio)New Frontiers of Health: AI, Psychedelics, the Gut-Brain Axis, and More! | Live from SXSWMy AI Teacher: Khan Academy and the Future of Education | Dr. Kristen Dicerbo (Chief Learning Officer)Making Music With AI – And Doing So Ethically | Diaa El All, Founder & CEO of SoundfulThe full show archive is at crafted.fm, where I hope you'll also subscribe to the CRAFTED. newsletter. And please share CRAFTED. with a friend. Just one. Text them right now!Thanks... and onward!

On a rooftop at SXSW, fellow startup advisor and podcaster Rob Kenedi joins me as we discuss why: AI models are becoming commodities…AI companies need to differentiate at the application layer, with brand, and by earning trust…B2B creators are all the ragePodcasts are so intimate and how video changes thingsWe're in the “fart app” era of AI…Enjoy this uncrafted CRAFTED.!And if you enjoy this more casual format, please share your feedback. DM me on LinkedIn or email me: dan@modernproductminds.comWhere to find Rob:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rkenedi/Decelerator podcast: https://decelerator.media/More CRAFTED.:Subscribe to the CRAFTED. newsletter: https://www.crafted.fmLearn how Dan and Modern Product Minds can help you discover, build, and test new products: https://www.modernproductminds.com 

Linda Liukas is a programmer, children's book author, and the creator of Hello Ruby, a whimsical series that teaches computing concepts through stories and play. She's also the force behind a one-of-a-kind playground in Helsinki—designed to teach kids how computers work without them ever touching a screen.In this episode, Linda shares why, especially with the rise of AI and code-writing copilots, we need to rethink the way we teach tech. Linda, a.k.a. the “Mary Poppins of Computing”, is on a mission to bring more whimsy, creativity, and fearlessness to kids and grown-ups alike. Enjoy this very fun episode!You'll learn:Why physical play helps us grasp abstract computing conceptsHow software makers can benefit from thinking like educatorsWhat “unplugged computing” looks like—and why it worksHow to cultivate creativity, curiosity, and fearlessness in tech teamsWhy learning through play isn't just for kidsWhat Linda's AI experiments with tiny personal datasets reveal about the future of learningChapters(00:00) - Introduction (01:42) - What it means to be the “Mary Poppins of Computing” (02:18) - Designing the Computer Playground (05:43) - Why play is an ideal way to teach programming (09:26) - Why software organizations should embrace play (13:19) - AI and play (14:47) - Learn to code vs. learn to program; how to become future-proof (21:20) - Hello Ruby: how Linda accidentally became a children's book author (25:35) - Building more playgrounds and more fun ideas on teaching through play Links & ResourcesLinda's websiteLinda's NewsletterHello Ruby – Linda's book series and learning platformThe Computer Playground in HelsinkiMore on Dan and CRAFTED.Subscribe to the CRAFTED. newsletterFollow Dan on LinkedinLearn how Dan and Modern Product Minds can help you build great products

Educator, innovator, super-connector, and conference champion Kwaku Aning and I have coffee and discuss a few things that stuck us at SXSW, including:Why we're in a “pre-mainframe” moment in quantum computing — and why you should prepare for what comes nextBioengineering: are we headed for a Westworld-style mix of human musculature and AI?Robot choreography, e.g. how to train a self-driving car to drive non-aggressively (but also should they be allowed to speed?) Mind control via inaudible noises and Severance-style brain implantsWhether or not I had enough breakfast tacos in Austin…Where to find Kwaku:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kwaku-aning/Clickpoint podcast: https://clickpoint.transistor.fm/Where to find Dan and get more CRAFTED.:Sign up for the CRAFTED. newsletter: https://www.crafted.fm LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dblums/ Learn how Dan and Modern Product Minds can help you discover, build, and test new products: https://www.modernproductminds.com 

How do you build a system for turning wild ideas into world-changing innovations? Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots at X, The Moonshot Factory, has spent over 15 years leading Google's audacious innovation lab—the birthplace of Waymo, Google Brain, and other breakthrough projects.In this special episode, recorded live in Austin at SXSW, Astro shares the playbook to create a moonshot factory. You'll Learn:

What if we could deliver supplies anywhere, no roads or runways needed?Elroy Air has built a really big drone. One that can carry 300 pounds of stuff 300 miles or more. And it takes off like a helicopter, but flies like a plane, meaning it can get in and out of all sorts of hard to reach places. In this episode, we sit down with David Merrill, co-founder, executive chairman, and former CEO of Elroy Air, to explore how these hybrid-electric, vertical takeoff and landing aircraft are set to transform express delivery, humanitarian aid, and military logistics.David shares the lean prototyping and rapid iteration strategies that helped bring Elroy Air's vision to life, the biggest technical challenges they've tackled, and what the future of autonomous aerial logistics could look like. Plus, we dive into the Jetsons-inspired origins of Elroy Air and whether flying taxis are still on the horizon.What You'll Learn in This Episode:

CRAFTED. host Dan Blumberg will be at SXSW this year. Will you? If so, please reach out! DM me on LinkedIn or go to crafted.fm where you can email me. Let's get a taco!—Software, hardware, and biotechnology are playing an increasingly transformative role in our mental health and wellness. On this episode of CRAFTED., recorded live on the “Next” stage at SXSW 2024, we discuss what investors look for in these new companies and how they separate what's real — and what's near-term — from what's hype. On stage with host Dan Blumberg are:Amy Kruse, General Partner & Chief Investment Officer at Satori Neuro, and a trained neuroscientistMatias Serebrinsky, Co-founder and General Partner at PsyMed Ventures, and the host of Business Trip, which is a great podcast if you want to go even deeper on these topics. Listen at businesstrip.fm Christie Nicholson, Founder of Studio Lumina, and the co-host for this panelWe'll explore AI-powered tools for mental health, the new area of “enerceuticals” (energy replacing the “pharma”), psychedelics, and why what's in your gut is so important to your mental state. Hear from investment experts who have a wide view of this growing startup landscape and better understand which new ventures are likely to succeed.— Key Moments:01:38] Recent advances in biotech and why advances in data and AI are helping biology become a more “mature” science[04:00] Why AI is overhyped, but also where it's not[07:37] Why psychedelics are overhyped, but also where they're not[10:04] What's real and amazing: brain-computer interfaces, e.g. humans controlling robotic arms with the minds[11:25] What's real and amazing: precision psychiatry and neuroscience[14:12] The emerging field of “enerceuticals” -- using energy instead of drugs, e.g. low intensity focused ultrasound[16:17] Neuroplasticity: our brains can change![21:31] Mental health, the gut-brain axis, and food as medicine[32:38] The business models of bio tech startups and how to know when a company is making progress on a years-long effort—CRAFTED. is produced by Modern Product Minds, where my team and I can help you take a new product from zero to one... and beyond. We specialize in early stage product discovery, growth, and experimentation. Learn more at modernproductminds.com Subscribe to CRAFTED., follow the show, and sign up for the newsletter