TechStuff

AI is changing cybersecurity and raising hard questions about how fast organizations can
respond. 

Earlier this year, IBM and Red Hat launched Lightwell, a $5 billion initiative backed by a force of
20,000 engineers with the goal of securing the open source software that powers a great deal of
modern life — from banks and payment systems to transportation and critical infrastructure.
Malcolm Gladwell speaks with cybersecurity leader Jen Easterly, Wells Fargo Chief Information
Security Officer Munish Sharma, and Red Hat’s Gunnar Hellekson about how AI is transforming
vulnerability discovery, how open source software can introduce risk, and what it will take to
secure the shared digital infrastructure much of the world depends on.

If this episode sparks a question you’d like to ask an IBM technical expert, submit your question
at ibm.com/smarttalks

This is a paid advertisement from IBM. The conversations on this podcast don't necessarily
represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

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You’ve probably seen a few episodes of The Builders with Walter Isaacson in the TechStuff feed… today, we’re going to talk about them.

Oz Woloshyn is joined by his Kaleidoscope co-founder Mangesh Hattikudur to talk about how this podcast… and all the high-profile interviews featured in that series came together. Joining us to break down the interviews are two chroniclers of Musk and Thiel: Max Chafkin, a Bloomberg Businessweek columnist and author of "The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and the Rise of the Silicon Valley Oligarchs," and Faiz Siddiqui, a technology reporter for The Washington Post and author of "Hubris Maximus: The Shattering of Elon Musk." 

Listen to hear what they make of Musk’s DOGE regrets and Thiel’s musings on the Antichrist.

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Not too long ago we gave TechStuff listeners a sneak peek at a new podcast called The Builders, and today we're excited to share the second episode.

In this series, bestselling biographer Walter Isaacson sits down with the most consequential names in AI and tech to understand the futures they're racing to build. 

TechStuff listeners will want to tune in because on Friday, we'll discuss the first two episodes of The Builders and hear from some journalists who've covered these personalities for years.

Peter Thiel has become one of the most mysterious and controversial figures in tech. He’s a visionary investor who recognizes transformative ideas before everyone else. But he’s also seen as a shadowy figure whose network has accumulated extraordinary influence across Silicon Valley, national security and politics proven by his bets on people like Elon Musk, Alex Karp, Sam Altman, and even Vice-President JD Vance.

Walter invites the “builder of builders” and co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, to explain his warnings about the Antichrist, discuss the current moment of AI co-founders speaking out about safety, and to ask Thiel his philosophy on preferring evil founders to incompetent ones. An illuminating conversation with the man whose bets are reimagining tomorrow’s tech and politics.

Interview taped September 16, 2026.

And be sure to pick up Walter Isaacson’s The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution, wherever fine books are sold.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Not too long ago we gave TechStuff listeners a sneak peek at a new podcast called The Builders, and today we can finally share the first episode! 

In this series, bestselling biographer Walter Isaacson sits down with the most consequential names in AI and tech to understand the futures they're racing to build. 

TechStuff listeners will want to tune in because on Friday, we'll discuss the first two episodes of The Builders and hear from some journalists who've covered these personalities for years.

First up is Elon Musk.

Elon Musk has spent his career turning improbable ideas into companies that reshape the world. To some, the entrepreneur behind Tesla and SpaceX is an engineering genius whose ambitions have transformed electric cars and space travel. To others, his politics and extraordinary influence raise serious questions about the future he is building. Either way, the world’s first trillionaire is betting on AI, humanoid robots and life beyond Earth.

In this season’s debut episode, Walter asks Musk about DOGE regrets, why he believes robots will solve America’s national debt, and the dark politics that have consumed his own platform, X. Along the way, Musk shares why living in a simulation demands that we all be less boring. A candid conversation about the imagination, drive and contradictions of a man determined to turn his vision into our future.

Interview taped August 6, 2026.

And be sure to pick up Walter Isaacson’s The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution, wherever fine books are sold.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

TechStuff listeners! If you love the 'Week in Tech,' and want to hear more from Semafor's Reed Albergotti, look no further than Future Proof. 

Future Proof is Semafor's weekly video and podcast series, hosted by Reed, featuring conversations with founders, builders, policymakers, executives and investors working in technology and artificial intelligence. 

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Is Silicon Valley worthy of the big screen? Reed Albergotti (Semafor and Future Proof), Kyle Chayka (The New Yorker), and Julia Black (Vanity Fair) debate two new films about tech world drama… and why the OpenAI boardroom saga makes for good cinema. Then, Kyle unpacks the bankruptcy of Character.AI and whether it’s fair to see it’s the first domino to fall in the AI bubble. Finally, Reed brings us into the world of gaming. And how Xbox is responding to the video game mashups consumers are building thanks to AI.

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AI agents are acting autonomously, but what happens if they break the law? Investigative journalist and Shell Game host Evan Ratliff joins Oz to explore how AI is already complicating the criminal justice system. The courts are already grappling with whether a chatbot could be considered an accomplice, why your conversations with AI may not be legally privileged, and what happens when an AI agent commits a crime no human explicitly told it to commit.

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Will Adobe survive the decompiling revolution? Reed Albergotti (Semafor and Future Proof), Kyle Chayka (Infinite Scroll, New Yorker), and Taylor Lorenz (User Mag) pull up to the roundtable, uncertain of how soon we’ll really see nuclear reactors on the moon—but sure that there’s plenty of space junk in our future, whatever powers our space stations. Then, Taylor brings us a story of the value of sticking with human-led data when you go offline...and takes a stand for human responsibility in the agentic AI era. Finally, Kyle brings us news that decompiling breakthroughs might mean software subscriptions will become a thing of the past…that is, if big tech doesn’t bring down a regulatory hammer.

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Why are the people most afraid of artificial superintelligence racing to build it? After interviewing more than 150 AI insiders, former New York Times tech columnist and podcast host Kevin Roose found a race fueled by fear, bitter rivalries, and one recurring belief: if we don’t build it first, someone else will.

Kevin joins Oz to discuss his new book, The AGI Chronicles:The Inside Story of the Race to Create an Artificial Superintelligence. They explore the personal feuds shaping the technology, why everyone should pay attention, and how those outside Silicon Valley could shape the future.

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Will frontier AI labs really police themselves, or will the FTC pull rank? Reed Albergotti (Semafor), Margaux MacColl (Vanity Fair) and Nitasha Tiku (The Washington Post) dive into tech’s big week in Washington to tell us what to expect from evaluators, who the evaluators are, and which tech leaders came out on top at the boys’ lunch at the White House. Then, our nightlife correspondent reports back on the pro-data groups trying to party the woke out. Finally, remember Yahoo? Marissa Mayer is back (again!) with a new app that leverages your camera roll… but does anyone want it?

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