Keen On America

EPISODE 1938: In this special KEEN ON show from DLD in Munich, Andrew talks Union Square Ventures partner, Albert Wenger, about work, leisure  and the environment in our smart machine age

Albert Wenger is a managing partner at Union Square Ventures. Before joining USV, Albert was the president of del.icio.us through the company’s sale to Yahoo and an angel investor (Etsy, Tumblr). He previously founded or co-founded several companies, including a management consulting firm and an early hosted data analytics company. Albert graduated from Harvard College in economics and computer science and holds a Ph.D. in Information Technology from MIT. 

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

EPISODE 1937: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Alex Byrne, author of TROUBLE WITH GENDER, about slippery sex facts and factual gender fictions

​Alex Byrne teaches in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (In the philosophy half of the department.) His main interests are philosophy of mind (especially perception), metaphysics (especially color) and epistemology (especially self-knowledge). A few years ago he started working on philosophical issues relating to sex and gender. He recently finished a book on these topics, Trouble with Gender: Sex Facts, Gender Fictions, which is now out in the UK and the US.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

EPISODE 1936: In this special KEEN ON show from DLD in Munich, Andrew talks to Martin Puchner, author of CULTURE: THE STORY OF US, FROM CAVE ART TO K-POP, about on the future of artistic creativity in the age of the smart machine

​Martin Puchner, the Byron and Anita Wien Professor at Harvard University, is a prize-winning author, educator, public speaker, and institution builder in the arts and humanities. His writings range from philosophy and theater to culture and technology and have been translated into many languages. Through his best-selling Norton Anthology of World Literature and his HarvardX MOOC Masterpieces of World Literature, he has brought four thousand years of literature to audiences across the globe. His book, The Written World, which tells the story of literature from the invention of writing to the Internet, has been widely reviewed in The New York Times, The Times (London), the Financial Times, The Times Literary Supplement, The Atlantic, The Economist, among others, covered on radio and television, and has been translated into some twenty languages. It appeared on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list and received the Massachusetts Book Award. His book The Language of Thieves has been praised as an unusual combination of scholarship and memoir, and the writing, compared to Stevenson's Treasure Island and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. An adventurous foray into the philosophy of language, it is also a reckoning with Germany's past. His book Literature for a Changing Planet is based on the inaugural Oxford University Lectures in European History, delivered in November 2019, has been reviewed in the Financial Times, The New York Review of Books and other venues. It calls for a new approach to storytelling and climate change. His most recent book, Culture: The Story of Us, tells a global history of culture that raises fundamental questions about how culture works, and how different cultures should relate to one another.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

EPISODE 1935: In this special KEEN ON show from DLD in Munich, Andrew talks to Susan Danzinger about she is putting radical philosophical ideas into practice in upstate New York

Susan Danziger is an investor and entrepreneur, founding a venture capital firm along with several social and environmental impact organizations including Wally Farms—a living research project dedicated to finding a food system that is better for the planet, the economy and the consumer. With their eyes set on the future of farming, Wally Farms is looking to find new, more sustainable ways to structure the food industry. By working with farmers, processors, distributors, chefs and more, Wally Farms is actively looking for solutions to the sustainability and nutrition accessibility issues that pervade our current system. Wally Farms also offers an extensive educational program, providing online courses, workshops and events as well as hands-on experiences for the local community at the farm. Additionally, Wally Farms is committed to reducing their carbon footprint by building a microgrid of solar panels. This grid provides Wally Farms with their main, and soon to be only, source of energy. They also reduce their carbon footprint by utilizing electric vehicles, prioritizing electric tools, tractors, cars and bikes for all on-site projects. Why She Made the Worthy 100: Danziger’s project, Wally Farms, is finding innovative ways to improve the farming, processing and distribution methods that make up the American food supply chain. Their holistic approach to improving our current food system focuses on researching ways to address the climate crisis and providing communities with educational experiences as well as access to more nutritious foods.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

EPISODE 1934: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to the founder & CEO of Fairly Trained, about the dire consequences of generative AI companies "scraping" data without acknowledging its creators 

Ed Newton-Rex work sat the intersection of generative AI and music creation. He founded Jukedeck, an AI music generation company that provided music for video, TV, radio, podcasts and games. In 2019, Jukedeck was acquired by ByteDance, where he ran the European AI Lab and later led Product in Europe for TikTok. Most recently he was VP of Audio at Stability AI. Ed was on the founding team of the AI Song Contest, and he is a mentor at Abbey Road Studios’ music tech incubator. He writes choral music, which is published by Boosey & Hawkes.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

EPISODE 1933: In this special KEEN ON show recorded at the DLD conference in Munich, Andrew talks to the Founder & CEO of Hidden Door, Hilary Mason, who peers behind the hidden door of AI, Gaming and Storytelling

Hilary Mason is the Founder & CEO of Fast Forward Labs, a machine intelligence research company, and the Data Scientist in Residence at Accel Partners. She co-founded HackNY, and she is a member of NYC Resistor.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

EPISODE 1932: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Yanis Varoufakis, author of TECHNO FEUDALISM, about the death of capitalism ad its replacement with a "cloudalist" totalitarianism

Yanis Varoufakis is the former finance minister of Greece and the author of several international bestselling books. And the Weak Suffer What They Must?: Europe, Austerity and the Threat to Global Stability reveals the underlying problems that led to the Eurozone crisis and its ongoing catastrophic mishandling. Adults In the Room: My Battle with Europe's Deep Establishment is an explosive memoir that reveals what goes on behind the scenes in Europe's corridors of power. Talking To My Daughter About the Economy: A Brief History of Capitalism (forthcoming) explains through vivid stories and easily graspable concepts what economics actually is and why it is so dangerous in the form of a letter to his teenage daughter. Born in Athens in 1961, Yanis Varoufakis was for many years a professor of economics in Britain, Australia and the USA before he entered government and is currently Professor of Economics at the University of Athens. Since resigning from Greece's finance ministry he has co-founded an international grassroots movement, DiEM25, campaigning for the revival of democracy in Europe and speaks to audiences of thousands worldwide.yanisvaroufakis.eu / @yanisvaroufakis

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

EPISODE 1931: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Nick Romeo, author of THE ALTERNATIVE, about how to build a just economy

Nick Romeo is a journalist, critic, and essayist. His new book, The Alternative: How to Build a Just Economy (forthcoming January 2024 from PublicAffairs and Basic Books), uses extensive original reporting to provide a road map for a sustainable and survivable twenty-first-century economy. He has spent years covering policy and ideas for The New Yorker magazine, where he has explored the neuropsychologist Nicholas Humphrey’s novel theory of consciousness, reported on the world’s largest worker-owned cooperative in Mondragon, Spain, and examined a job guarantee experiment outside of Vienna, Austria. Nick has contributed front page breaking news stories, profiles, and essays to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Scientific American, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, The New Republic, and many other venues. His work ranges from reports on the refugee crisis in Greece to the privatization of archaeological resources in the American southwest to a profile of the Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro. He has reviewed dozens of books and has published on the history of the novel, Plato and behavioral economics, and the purpose of education. Nick holds a BA from Northwestern University, as well as an MFA in fiction and an MA in ancient Greek philosophy from the University of Colorado, Boulder. He teaches in the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley. 

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

EPISODE 1930: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Frank Vogl, author of THE ENABLERS, about the marketing scammers behind the increasingly mainstream success of cryptocurrency

Frank Vogel  is the co-founder of two leading international non-governmental organizations fighting corruption -- Transparency International and the Partnership for Transparency Fund (Frank is the Chair of the PTF Board).  He teaches at Georgetown University, writes regular "blog" articles on corruption for theGlobalist.com and lectures extensively.  Frank is also a specialist in international economics and finance with more than 50 years of experience in these fields - first as an international journalist, then as the Director of Information & Public Affairs at the World Bank official and, from 1990 to 2017, as the president and CEO of a consulting firm, Vogl Communications Inc.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

EPISODE 1929: In this DLD special recorded in Munich, Andrew talks to Kenneth Cukier, co-author of BIG DATA, about AI, spirituality and the new humanism in our digital age

Kenneth Cukier is the Deputy Executive Editor at The Economist in London and cohost of its weekly tech podcast Babbage. He is coauthor of the award-winning book “Big Data" with Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, a NYT Bestseller translated into over 20 languages. He is a regular commentator on BBC, CNN, and NPR, and a popular keynote speaker, from TED to Davos. In 2002-04, Cukier was a research fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He is a board director of Chatham House, a fellow at Oxford's Saïd Business School and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. His latest book is "Framers" on the power of mental models and the limits of AI.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.