Alta Magazine Podcast

In this bonus episode of the Alta podcast, recorded on March 21, 2019 at Books Inc’s Opera Plaza location, we discuss the many complicated legacies of the late Steve Jobs with three Silicon Valley mainstays who worked with and knew him well. Our panelists include Andy Hertzfeld, who was a member of the original Apple Macintosh development team in the 1980s, Tom Zito, who penned the recent Alta article on Steve Jobs that inspired this event, and who first met Jobs in 1977 while working for the Washington Post, and Al Alcorn, who among other things created the Pong video game, and first hired an 18-year-old Steve Jobs at Atari. Along with moderator Blaise Zerega, Alta’s Managing Editor, the panel recollects their time with Jobs and debates the many legacies of this man who changed the way we communicate

Today’s guest is Mark Potts, former (and founding) Managing Editor of the Journal of Alta California. Mark has covered business and the media for the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and the Associated Press and he currently lives in Lawrence, Kansas. Mark wrote our Summer 2019 cover story, a look at the past, present and the future of the storied Los Angeles Times and is here to detail the many ups and downs of this legendary daily paper. 

Based in Los Angeles, Safi Alia Shabaik is a founding member of the Los Angeles Street Collective and a teaching assistant at the Los Angeles Center of Photography. She’s also worked as a stylist and muse to performer Grace Jones and — as a mortician. Safi’s work explores underground subculture and nightlife in Los Angeles, and a collection of her rare color images are featured in the Summer 2019 issue of Alta. She joins us to explain why connecting with the bold beauty of L.A. underground nightlife is an important part of our humanity. 

Matt Smith, a journalist for the Center for Investigative Reporting, joins us to discuss the hot-button issue of feral cats. For Alta’s Summer 2019 Issue, Matt wrote about the oddly complicated world of feral cats — their devoted fans, their activist euthanizers, and the section of Disneyland that is home to dozens of them. Yes. Disneyland. Today, he’s going to take us even deeper into this heated and, quite frankly fascinating issue.

In a Bonus Episode of our Alta Podcast, we visit author Julian Guthrie to discuss her new book, Alpha Girls: The Woman Upstarts Who Took On Silicon Valley's Male Culture and Made Deals of a Lifetime. Guthrie explains how she researched this intimate look at some of venture capital's leading partners, and reveals that her book will soon be developed for television.

Think you know Jack (London)? Think again. Writer Joy Lanzendorfer joins us to discuss the tragedy that broke the famed author's heart, his complexities, passions, and untimely death. In our Summer 2019 issue, Joy details author Jack London’s rise from abject poverty to become the highest paid author of his day. With his success, London saw his dreams come true, and then watched one of them — the dream for his own beautiful mansion — burn to the ground before he ever got a chance to live in it. Joy is an award-winning writer and novelist, with bylines in The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Review of Books and now, Alta.

Explore the hardscrabble times, places, and people of Texas and New Mexico in our panel discussion titled Busted: Brash Stories from Texas and New Mexico. Authors Joshua Wheeler and Bryan Mealer join Alta contributor and Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano to recount the booms, busts and bold characters of life in the Southwestern United States. Busted was recorded on March 7, 2019 at The Huntington Library in San Marino, California and is presented in partnership with the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West. 

Show notes:

Read a condensed transcript of this event

Joshua Wheeler's Acid West

Bryan Mealer's The Kings of Big Spring

Gustavo Arellano at the Los Angeles Times and at Alta 

Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West

The Huntington Library

Michael Bauer, the former food critic of the San Francisco Chronicle for over 30 years. Michael has won numerous national awards in his nearly four decades of food journalism, and while retired from the Chronicle, he continues to write — including for us at Alta Magazine. Michael joins the Alta podcast to talk about emerging trends at dining around California, an unexpected dining destination, and $70 chicken.

Read Michael's review of Angler in a recent issue of Alta Magazine 

Check out Michael on another Alta podcast, defending San Francisco's food scene over Los Angeles's

Michael Bauer's feature on the food and wine of Baja, Napa of the South

Follow Michael Bauer on Twitter

Follow Alta on Twitter

Blaise Zerega, formerly a writer and editor at publications like Wired and Conde Nast Portfolio and now, he’s the Managing Editor of Alta Magazine. Blaise's latest piece for the magazine is a look at the rapidly growing popularity of podcasts — and what that means for the future of this very intimate medium. He joins us to talk about the history and the future of podcasting, and to recommend three podcasts that are doing it well. 

Read Blaise's feature in Alta Magazine, How We Listen: The Podcast Boom

Check out Alta's picks for 10 great California-based podcasts

Follow Blaise Zerega on Twitter

Follow Alta on Twitter

Cindy Hegger specializes in end-of-life photography. She began this stage of her business after photographing activists working in Sacramento to pass what ultimately became California’s End of Life Option Act, a law that allows terminally ill residents to end their life with self-administered drugs. Cindy and her clients treat the end of one’s life just like any other major milestone — something that should be documented with photos and treasured. Her work — and the process of end of life photography, is featured in the latest issue of Alta Magazine. She joins Alta's podcast to discuss her work and why her end of life photos aren't sad, they're joyful.