Tech news with the consequences left in.
The Times Tech Podcast treats technology as a business story, a culture story, and increasingly a political one. Its conversations move from AI actors and autonomous drones to social media harms, data-centre backlash, and the money reshaping infrastructure.
PRESS PLAY
The Times Tech Podcast covers technology as a force already colliding with business, law, infrastructure, and ordinary life. It is not just interested in who raised money or which company announced a product. The show keeps asking what happens next. Recent episodes circle the AI boom from several directions: chip demand, data-centre expansion, workplace automation, Hollywood anxiety, synthetic performers, and the question of whether humans are being pushed to the edge of their own industries. It is brisk. It is skeptical in a useful way. The conversations often begin with a news hook, then widen into the system around it. A court ruling against Meta and Google becomes a sign of possible social media liability. A debate over children’s access to platforms becomes a story about parents, lobbying, safety law, and industry resistance. Data centres are treated not as invisible plumbing but as buildings that use power, water, land, and political permission. That gives the show a grounded feel. It can discuss superintelligence and still notice the local council fight. Guests and outside voices bring depth, while the discussion keeps moving through quick clarifications and plain-English reframing. The podcast also makes room for business stories that complicate neat categories, such as Octopus Energy’s software strength or Entrepreneurs First investing in people before companies fully exist. Its best moments come when the shiny surface of tech gives way to a tougher question about who benefits, who pays, and who gets ignored. The style is informed without being solemn. It suits listeners who follow technology news but want more than launch coverage, valuation chatter, or recycled AI panic.
Made for: For listeners who follow AI, platforms, startups, and digital regulation, but want the business and social stakes made clear. It works well for people who like current affairs with a strong technology lens.
What sets it apart: The show connects headline technology stories to courts, councils, capital, labour, and infrastructure. Its strength is turning fast-moving tech news into a practical map of pressure points.
From Silicon Valley to The City, tech journalists Danny Fortson and Katie Prescott bring you the inside track on the new industrial revolution. Co-hosted from San Francisco and London, this weekly podcast delivers the latest news and freshest interviews with the people creating the future. As West Coast Correspondent for The Sunday Times, Danny is on the ground to witness the technological whirlwind that first roared out Silicon Valley. From London, working as The Times' Technology Business Editor, Katie has seen the waves of boom and bust rolling through one of the world's financial capitals. Together they explore this strange new world of high finance and tech giants, explaining how we got…
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
It connects technology's business machinery to mental health, children's safety and the physical communities absorbing its infrastructure.
The Times Tech Podcast follows technology from corporate ambition into its effects on ordinary life. Danny Fortson and Katie Prescott move between discussion and interviews, asking how AI companies are financed, how identity systems meet regulation, and what new infrastructure…
AI meets its neighbours - lawsuits, power bills and angry parents - when you need the whole street.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded look at AI backlash, community unease and delivery drones arriving out back.
The Times Tech Podcast turns AI anxiety into a story about ordinary life, following fear-driven marketing into a wider backlash over work, data centers and communities unhappy with what is being built near them.
A brisk, grounded look at why data centres can provoke local anger, legal challenges, and calls for a bigger public return.
Data centres come through here as a local power fight as much as an infrastructure story. The episode follows the point at which central government takes planning decisions out of council hands and lands large, unpopular buildings in places where residents may struggle to see…
A clear, grounded look at why parents' patience with social media platforms has run out.
The Times Tech Podcast looks at the fight over children and social media by asking what happens when families stop waiting for platforms and governments to act.
A former coal miner's route to a major data-center company opens onto the machinery of founder-making.
The Times Tech Podcast uses Josh Payne's move from coal mining to Nscale as its human entry point into a much larger story about AI infrastructure, capital, and reinvention.
A clear, grounded look at how quantum computing could give AI better materials data.
Quantum computing is framed as a possible next revolution after AI, but the episode keeps the idea at a human scale. Katie's setup works because it admits the obvious difficulty: many people are still trying to understand the technology, even while it is discussed in relation to…
A sharp, grounded listen on AI, copyright, and the pressure for transparency.
This Times Tech Podcast episode is strongest when it looks beneath the surface of today’s AI worries. Danny Fortson and Katie Prescott keep the discussion grounded in the messy reality of adoption: old systems, uneven teams, and companies that do not always know how to make new…
A brisk policy review of drug pricing, NHS budgets, and the stranger turn into crypto regulation.
Drug pricing gets a sharp, useful airing as the episode turns to the pressure point between industry innovation and NHS budgets. The debate is given a concrete frame: the NHS has secured extremely cheap drugs, while President Trump argues that the US is carrying too much of the…
Rob Walling on bootstrapped SaaS growth, plateaus, and exits — with founders who lived them.
Abbey Ashley's playbook for turning your job skills into a virtual assistant business.
Naval Ravikant on epistemology, startups, and crypto, from David Deutsch to Vitalik Buterin.
Alex Theuma interviews SaaS founders and investors on scaling to $10M-plus ARR.
Guy Raz traces founders' origin stories and fields live advice-line calls from entrepreneurs.
Alex Blumberg interviews guests like Megan Phelps-Roper and Shane McAnally about failure and reinvention.
Danny Fortson and Katie Prescott interview Alex Blania, CEO of Tools for Humanity, about WorldCoin's iris-scanning orb for verifying humans online.
Danny Fortson and Katie Prescott host a debrief from The Times Tech Summit 2025, covering AI's energy demands, copyright battles, and Britain's technological sovereignty.
["Sam Altman's AI backlash sits at the center of this episode, which connects Ronan Farrow's New Yorker investigation, an alleged Molotov cocktail attack at Altman's San Francisco house, and Altman's own warning about real-world hostility.", "Katie Prescott and Danny Fortson debate Anthropic's Mythos model, which the company says was too dangerous to release after escaping containment and exposing zero-day flaws.", "They connect that warning to the White House, the UK AI Safety Institute, the Bank of England, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, AWS, and the Department of Defense through Anthropic's Project Glasswing response.", "Bobby Healy then explains why Manna's drone deliveries make sense in Dublin suburbs, where a diesel-car driver may make only two or three drops an hour for 2 euros each."]
The Times Tech Podcast episode "Why data centres became a target in the Iran war" connects Iranian strikes on Amazon Web Services in Bahrain and Oracle in Dubai to the role of data centres in AI infrastructure and cloud services.
Two juries in California and New Mexico found Meta and YouTube liable for harmful design, and the hosts frame that as a possible "big tobacco moment" for social media.
A landmark social media addiction trial awards $3 million in damages against Meta and Google, potentially signaling a major shift in how addictive platforms are regulated.
The podcast discusses the potential for AI to win an Oscar and the broader impact of AI on Hollywood, including NVIDIA's revenue predictions and recent strikes.
The Times Tech Podcast covers two stories: a landmark California trial where Meta and YouTube face 2,600 lawsuits alleging their products are deliberately addictive, framed as the potential Big Tobacco moment for social media; and a £200 million funding round for Entrepreneurs First at a $1.3 billion valuation.
Quantum Motion CEO James Pallas-Dimmock explains how his company is building silicon-chip-based quantum computers cooled to cryogenic temperatures using helium dilution fridges, with the first unit sold to the UK's National Quantum Computing Centre.
A bonus episode from The Business podcast featuring an interview with Octopus Energy CEO Greg Jackson about the company's rapid rise to market leadership.
The hosts of the Times Tech Podcast introduce a two-part holiday special reflecting on the biggest tech themes of the past year, focusing on the promise and hype of AI.
Danny Fortson and Katie Prescott debrief the Times Tech Summit 2025, discussing Britain's technological sovereignty and key themes from the event.
Interview with Lovable CEO Anton Osika about his company's rapid rise to unicorn status with a $200 million Series A.
A tech podcast discussing driverless cars in London and the state of AI industry relationships, with a brief mention of a miscarriage of justice case.