Staying updated on developments in your industry is crucial for any business leader to remain successful. The tech industry evolves and pivots faster than any other field, and if a company’s tech leadership doesn’t keep up, it can quickly set the business back.
Podcasts are a great way for tech professionals to stay abreast of current happenings within the industry
Land of Giants
When historians look back on this time in human history, they will point to a new era — a new species, really — of imperial regimes. Google, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix: the tech giants that dominate our culture, economy, and even politics demands thorough understanding and investigation. That’s exactly what Recode’s Land of the Giants delivers, explaining how the most powerful companies came to be and at what cost to the rest of us. In Season 3, the most recent, hosts Shirin Ghaffary and Alex Kantrowitz tackle the first and most prevailing emperor of big tech, searching far and wide for the story behind Google (and by extension YouTube.).
QAnon Anonymous
“A more in-depth look into the source or force behind Q than that one Reply All episode, this investigative limited series dives into every possible avenue for who Q could possibly be. Aside from being fascinating, it’s an essential resource for debunking many of the popular theories that don’t hold up water under scrutiny. Host Jake Hanrahan can honestly be a bit smarmy at times but — as a journalist known for reporting on militias — he brings level-headed expertise that bucks the tendency to sensationalize Qanon.”
Pivot
Kara Swisher, a treasure to tech journalism, is joined by NYU Professor Scott Galloway to paint both the more granular and bigger pictures involved with all the latest trending news stories. While sometimes broader than just tech, most roads these days eventually lead back there. They bring fair but critical perspectives to the table, as well as predictions for the industry’s biggest winners and losers every Tuesday and Friday
Daily Tech News Show
“Increasingly, you need to know the ins and outs of tech and Silicon Valley if you have any hope of staying on top of what’s happening in the world. Unfortunately, a lot of old-guard journalism is not well-equipped to understand the minutiae of tech and the industry’s consequences. Hosts Tom Merritt and Sarah Lane, along with a pretty diverse cast of guests and co-hosts, distill all the tech news in a way that’s digestible to the layperson.”
Future of Sex
When people think of sextech, they often just imagine sex robots or high-tech Bluetooth vibrators. But the collision of sexuality and technology is so much more than that and, increasingly (especially after a year spent in physical isolation), it’s becoming relevant to all. Host Bryony Cole interviews the biggest leaders in this rapidly growing, multi-billion-dollar industry on everything from the stigma around male sex toys to the craft of astrosexologists, covering the wide breadth of topics we need to talk about in order to understand our horny futures.
Tech Won’t Save Us
Tech Won’t Save Us, as the title implies, is a healthy counter dose to the nauseating tech utopia idealism that usually surrounds Silicone Valley and enthusiast tech press coverage. A left-leaning podcast, it digs into philosophical discussions about the underbelly of the tech industry and digital culture. You’ll find conversations on Elon Musk and the problematic history he invokes while championing space colonization, or why Bill Gates’ nonprofit foundation raises huge issues around the “good billionaire” mythology. While the sound quality isn’t as polished as others, that’s definitely not enough of a problem to detract from listening to such vital discourse too often left out of conversations about tech news
Future of Storytelling
OK so remember those old Warner Classic cable TV movie marathons where decorated hosts would present each film with a 10-minute preamble on its significance to culture? Well, that’s what The Future of Storytelling podcast greets you with, only its host and organization founder Charlie Melcher does it to introduce his guests. Each interviewee is an innovator bringing art, media, and technology together somehow. If you can make it past the cringe-y (yet still endearing) amount of decorum in the intro, you’ll be privy to fascinating conversations with creators who are leading the way for interactive theater, immersive digital art, stop-motion animation, augmented reality games, and so much more.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Another big ideas tech podcast, the Verge’s Decoder, hosted by editor-in-chief Nilay Patel, gives a great birds-eye-view into the tech landscape. While episodes are often tied to a topic circulating the news, the interviews and roundtable discussions are more evergreen than timely. This is the podcast to go to if, for example, you’re still on the fence about Bitcoin and want to hear experts on opposing ends of the debate duke it out through nitty-gritty details. While a bit less beginner-friendly than is typical for the Verge, there’s bound to be something personally interesting to you in the wide breadth of topics covered, which all start from a place of more universal appeal. The micro approach to such big, macro topics makes for a comprehensive listen, too.
Darknet Diaries
When we hear stories about the “darknet,” it feels like it’s stuff that happens in a totally different dimension. But in reality, the darknet and adjacent worlds of cybercrime impact all our lives in very real ways on a daily basis. Host Jack Rhysider is your perfect guide into this shady yet fascinating parallel universe to the world wide web most of us live in.
Vergecast
If buzzwords like “NFT” and “LIDAR technology” make your eyes glaze over, then the Vergecast is the podcast for you. This bi-weekly show from hosts Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn (along with other guest contributors and star interviews) distills even the most seemingly impenetrable tech nerd BS into something anyone can not only understand but enjoy. Vergecast brings highly informed and big picture perspectives to coverage of Apple rumors, gadget releases, tech trends, and other Silicon Valley news items, all through honest, personable, and down-to-earth conversations. They’re still total dorks, don’t get me wrong, but they’re dorks you definitely want to hang out with.