Shivani Siroya is the CEO and founder of Tala, a company is tackling a massive problem: there are 3 billion people around the world that are currently underserved from financial services—they don’t have bank accounts, access to formal credit options, traditional loan products, small business loans, or insurance products. Tala makes micro-loans in Kenya, Tanzania and the Philippines by using a person’s smartphone, transactions, and app usage to figure out if they are creditworthy. To evaluate creditworthiness, Tala built an Android app that scores would-be borrowers in 20 seconds by using data on their phone. In addition, they make a credit decision to lend money in that 20 second timeframe and acts as the lender. Tala dynamically prices between 5%-11% for the term, which is dramatically lower than the average APR in these markets, which is 350%. In this episode, Siroya describes how she pioneered this new form of micro-lending.

There will be 11 billion people on the planet by the end of this century, and the challenge will be to sustainably and efficiently feed them. Food is becoming a big business, and big agriculture is taking over the Monsanto’s of the world with strong interests in profits. Amol Deshpande, CEO and co-founder of the Farmers Business Network, has raised $50M for the network and created a tool that uses data to help farmers thrive and maintain the family businesses they’ve had for generations. FBN takes an unconventional and disruptive approach by asking: “What good is the data if you can’t take action on it and do better for yourself?” Amol demos his product and bridges the divide in understanding in how our food supply actually works. Jason and Amol explore the world of GMOs and organics, and the future of feeding humanity.

The emergence of social media connecting millions worldwide (& via Facebook, that's a cool billion) has thrown the problem of online harassment into the forefront of everyday life. What can we do about it? What's at stake? How does it affect real life, including human rights, freedom of speech, & law enforcement? Does online anonymity enable trolling, or is it irrelevant? What motivates trolls, anyway? Joining Jason today are writers Quinn Norton & Kevin Marks who have examined these questions in-depth and lend their debating skills to this Harassment on the Internet & Free Speech Roundtable.

Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Edward Humes joins Jason to discuss one of humankind's greatest innovations and persistent problems: transportation. The two talk about Edward's latest book, "Door to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation," the technology behind the "have it now" economy, industry's revolution in the form of containerization (& its hidden costs, e.g. carbon emissions), the transportation juggernaut that is Dominoes Pizza, how to bully the Google car, security on planes & cargo ships, the future of autonomous cars & drones, best options for sustainable fuel, China as our greatest frenemy, and much more. Join us!

It's Part 2 of Chris Sacca and Matt Mazzeo of Lowercase Capital. In this hour, the conversation turns to the patriotic duty of voting, Chris's experience on "Shark Tank" & the illustration of social mobility, the tremendous eSports market, drug testing, new products at Lowercase Alpha & the power of SMS, the great responsibility of being a VC and spending other people's money, Chris's favorite portfolio company,Tala.co, which extends credit in emerging markets, investing in diversity, raising daughters in the princess industrial complex, and more.

Chris Sacca & Matt Mazzeo of Lowercase Capital join Jason in L.A. for a rollicking two-parter. In between the ribbing, Part 1 finds the three catching up on the universal principles of building companies, what Chris & Matt can bring to the table, why Twitter isn't growing & its best buyer prospects, why Snapchat is genius but hard (for Chris & Jason but not Matt, the native swiper), the lost art of storytelling in product development, investing with integrity, Chris's tips for avoiding meetings -- and much more. (Stay tuned for Part 2 next week!)

Entrepreneurs are driving all of the innovation today, and this episode's guest is no exception. Adam Ludwin, CEO & Co-founder of Chain created a tool that's helping top financial firms (NASDAQ, CapitalOne, Citi, Fidelity, Visa & more) deploy the blockchain. Adam demos his technology, and offers a fascinating and super clear explanation of how/why bitcoin & the blockchain were developed, how it works, common misperceptions, how the DAO hack happened & long-term effects, and how he got that insanely amazing domain name. Jason and Adam venture deep into other tech & culture territory, including whither Apple, who will buy Twitter, Snapchat v. Instagram, religion, oppressed societies, Hamilton (The Musical), and the hardest part of a startup (hint: it's not the starting up).

On location at Upfront Ventures, Mark Suster joins Jason to share the lessons he's learned from both sides of the table, as an entrepreneur and investor. Mark lends insight into the hottest topics in the investing world: why VCs are obsessed with ownership, who are the best founders and why?, what does it really take to make it, the questionable value of demo day, how do you wow a VC during your pitch, handling zombie companies, coming to terms with a massive miss (hint: Uber), being bullish on Andreessen-Horowitz and on IPOs, and much more.

News Roundtable! Cade Metz of Wired and Ellen Huet of Bloomberg are in the studio to talk with Jason about the latest tech news. On tap: the Apple event and what was relevant (anything?), the Andreessen Horowitz and The Wall Street Journal kerfuffle over a16z's returns, the never-ending train wreck that is Theranos, startups such as Hotel Tonight cutting back and tightening belts, drone-bearing burritos, Burning Man, Airbnb's new anti-discrimination policy, and more.

After years of angel investing, Jason constantly gets questions. Today, he answers 11 common questions for 2016, some that are timeless, others about the moment -- from advice for introverts to self-promote to approaches to tackling growth, from how do you get intelligence about your competitor’s pricing to the secret to finding a technical co-founder if you are a non technical founder. Plus, find out what Jason thinks is most valuable to focus on: product, market, growth, team, prototype? All this and much more.