Dr. Dan Hooper is a Senior Scientist and the Head of the Theoretical Astrophysics Group at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. He is also a Professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. He holds a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Wisconsin.

Dan told me about how his early aspirations as a youth were actually in music. It wasn’t until he took a class as an undergraduate in Relativity that the astrophysics bug bit him. Hard. Dan explained how he landed a post-doc position at Oxford and how he was later hired at Fermilab. Later, we chatted about his interest in the interface between particle physics and cosmology, Dark Matter and what neutrinos can tell us about the early universe. We finished with an overview of his new astrophysics book that explores the mysteries of the origin of the universe.

David Sobotta joined Apple in 1984. His career there lasted until July 2004. During that time David went from being an entry-level sales representative based in Halifax, Nova Scotia covering Atlantic Canada to the Reston, Virginia, based director of Apple’s federal sales group. He has gained an intimate knowledge of Apple, its culture and the leadership of Steve Jobs.

David tells a story that started with the Apple II, learning the technology, going to work for a mini computer shop in Canada, growing the business so much that he got to know the Apple rep and then the serious attention of Apple. David evolved through business and then education, working with resellers, and eventually rose to the position of Apple Director of Federal Sales. We also chatted about Apple’s brief foray into selling supercomputers in 2004.

Mike Elgan writes a popular weekly column for Computerworld, contributes news analysis pieces for Fast Company and SecurityIntelligence and also writes special features, columns, and think pieces for a variety of publications.

Mike tells a career story that started in newspaper publishing with QuarkXPress. Soon, he realized that what he loved was not covering local politics but rather the technology of the Mac, networking and printing. That launched his career writing about computer tech. In the 2nd segment we chatted about some of our favorite topics: dealing with information overload, Apple’s amazing U1 chip, Augmented Reality glasses replacing iPhones, and cars that sense driver emotions. Mike has an amazing vision of our tech future. Join us.

Kelly Guimont is a long-time podcaster, Contributing Editor for The Mac Observer, the host of the Mac Observer’s Daily Observations podcast, a tech support guru, and a Founding Volunteer of App Camp for Girls.

Kelly first appeared here in December, 2015 to tell her career story and has returned many times for interesting discussions. In her 8th appearance, we chat about our favorite TV shows of late. Kelly: Fleabag (Amazon), The Politician (Netflix), and Billions (Showtime). John: Madam Secretary (CBS), Toy Story 4 (Pixar) and Victoria S3 (PBS). Join us as we explore together what’s great about these shows.

Bhavin Asher is a technologist and entrepreneur. After graduating college with a computer science degree, he went to work for IBM. Later, Bhavin transitioned to a position at Deloitte as a CRM Strategy Consultant. Deloitte provided a learning environment to understand how successful businesses leverage technology to scale and grow. Most recently, he was a Director and Solutions Architect at Salesforce. Today, Bhavin is the founder and CEO of GRUBBRR.

Bhavin tells a career story that well prepared him to launch his own business. GRUBBRR is a full-service kiosk order and sales system for, to name a few, restaurants, fast-casual restaurants, cafes, bars, coffee shops, and bakeries. If you’ve ever waited an eternity for your food order or check, you’ll want to hear how GRUBBRR has re-engineered the whole process for the digital age—including great GUI displays, AI and Apple Watch support. Welcome to tomorrow.

Don Melton is probably best known as the person who started the Safari and WebKit projects at Apple and his rise to Apple Engineering Director of Internet Technologies. These days he’s an aspiring writer, podcaster and recovering programmer.

Don walks us through his early career starting with his aspiration to become a comic strip or comic book artist. His artistic talent led to a newspaper job which led to information graphics which led to work with Macs. His tinkering with the Mac revealed that he had a special talent for programming, and that ultimately led to his job at Netscape developing the Navigator browser. Later, a relationship with Andy Hertzfeld and Bud Tribble led to his job at Apple in 2001, chartered by Scott Forstall, to write a web browser. Don tells a fascinating story about the development of Safari for Mac OS X and the race to replace Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

Brittany Smith is a productivity coach who provides a variety of consulting services through her business, Devise and Conquer, that includes ADD/ADHD coaching, technology coaching, productivity consulting, and more. She is a self-designated “well-rounded geek.” She holds an M.S. degree in Cognitive Neuroscience.

In our chat, Brittany told me about her adventures with homemade videos, with a PC, as a youth. Her father was a podiatrist and her mother was a programmer, so there were always computers in the house. But the Vista version of Windows drove her into the arms of the Mac. In the second half of the show we delved into just what cognitive neuroscience is, her productivity and Apple tech coaching. Along the way we chatted about the influence of Star Trek (and Disneyland) on her career. Brittany sparkles in this interview.

Dr. Brian Keating is an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences at the University of California, San Diego. His specialty is cosmology, and he is the father of the original BICEP project (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization). Last year, Brian published a terrific, courageous book about his team’s research, some life lessons, and the challenges of scientific research: Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science’s Highest Honor. It’s now out in paperback.

This time, we expanded on the discussion in his book about his quest for the Nobel prize. At the core: what the polarization of the cosmic background radiation tells us about the Big Bang. We also delved into the theory of the multiverse and its relationship to the anthropic principle. Finally, find out how you could win a piece of a 4.5 billion year old asteroid.

Dr. Susan Schneider is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at The University of Connecticut. She writes about issues in philosophy, AI, cognitive science and astrobiology. Within philosophy, she works on both the computational nature of the brain and the metaphysical nature of the mind. The topics she has written about most recently include radical brain enhancement, machine intelligence, consciousness, and the nature of persons. Her new book is Artificial You – AI And The Future Of Your Mind.

In our chat we covered many of the major issues of AI: the computational nature of the mind, consciousness, the question of whether consciousness is restricted to humans, extraterrestrial post-biological intelligence, AI implants in humans, and the ethical and cybersecurity issues of AI. Susan talks to AI issues you may have never thought about before. Join me in this awesome 30 minute virtual seminar on AI.

Carter Wilson is the USA Today and #1 Denver Post bestselling author of six critically acclaimed, standalone psychological thrillers, as well as numerous short stories. He is an ITW Thriller Award finalist, a three-time winner of the Colorado Book Award, and his novels have received multiple starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal. His latest novel, The Dead Girl in 2A, was released in July 2019.

Carter didn’t plan to become a novelist. It was really quite by accident. He got his bachelor’s degree from Cornell and planned to work in hotel services. Then, on a spring day in 2003, an exercise to ward off boredom during a continuing-education class evolved into a 400-page manuscript. Since that day, Carter has been constantly writing. We chatted about the craft of thrillers, his writing technique, killing off characters, and how he plans his storylines. It’s been an amazing journey.