In this episode, Julia speaks with Geetanjali Sampemane about trust — and what it really takes to build systems that people are willing to rely on, even when they do not fully understand how those systems work.

Geeta reflects on her early work helping connect institutions in India to the internet, and how mistrust of new technology gradually shifted through familiarity, experience, and positive outcomes. She shares how trust is rarely based on complete knowledge — it is a judgement call, shaped by risk, context, and past experience.

The conversation explores why trust is fragile and difficult to rebuild once broken, and how negative experiences undermine not only our trust in systems, but also our confidence in our own judgement.

Geeta also speaks about the role of those designing systems — the importance of clarity, reliability, predictability, and security — and why trust is strengthened when expectations are shared, behaviour is consistent, and mistakes are acknowledged rather than hidden.

This episode is a reminder that trust is not blind belief. It is built through constant attention, thoughtful design, and the quiet work of making systems worthy of the people who depend on them.

About the Guest:

Geetanjali Sampemane is a software engineer at Google London, where she focuses on designing systems for security, privacy and transparency. She started her career helping countries get connected to the Internet, first in India with the ERNet project, and then with the UNDP’s Sustainable Development Networking Programme. She got to see first-hand how people and organisations learn to trust new technology.